


Trapped

by Graymuse42



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry Allen is an Idiot, Blood and Gore, But He Gets Better, Canon Compliant, Cisco Ramon Whump, Emotional Manipulation, Grumpy Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells, Hurt/Comfort, Incan Empire, Kidnapping, Panic Attacks, Protective Leonard Snart, Rogue Time doesn't happen, Talk of Suicide, Torture, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, canon divergence - Rogue Time, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-07-08 17:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15934868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graymuse42/pseuds/Graymuse42
Summary: The first thing Barry heard was his phone going off. He rolled over, about to ignore it and go back to sleep, when he saw who it was from. What did Joe want at this hour of the morning?He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and answering it. "'ello?""Barry, it’s Joe, get to S.T.A.R. labs now. Dr. Wells...he's taken Cisco."Or, the Alternate ending to Season 1 that nobody asked me to write.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So.....I'm planning on finishing Frostbite, I swear. But I learned a long time ago that the muse does what the muse wants and if I don't follow I get writer's block for months on end. So! Have this fanfiction!  
> This is actually complete! I'm rewriting certain areas as I post, but I have the full story! So no more 'Why has this not been updated in 2 weeks?' I plan on updating every few days :)  
> Thank you for reading! If there's a tag I missed, please let me know! I'm very nervous/excited to see everyone's reactions!

It had been nagging at the back of his mind for too long now. Between the strange dreams during the past month, Joe’s theories, and then just a few minutes ago...how Dr. Wells had talked Barry through phasing…there was no way he could have known that. Not in actuality. What he had said, it didn’t make sense. Cisco couldn’t have imagined running like that, and while Dr. Wells was a visionary…

Cisco sat in his workroom, ignoring everything that told him something was terribly wrong here. He picked up a small screwdriver from his workbench, tinkering with something to help him sleep better. He was tired of these stupid dreams getting in the way of him having a solid night’s sleep. Maybe he’d have Caitlin take a look at it in a few days, if he could scrounge some idea from the recesses of his mind.

Rubbing a hand across his eyes, he yawned. He’d really been up for too long. He was about to stand up, when he glanced over to the computer. It had been nagging at the back of his head for so long...

Cisco stood up, pulling up the schematics from his failed force field at Christmas. It still didn’t make sense. He’d messed up, clearly, because the Reverse Flash had still escaped. But…had he? He ran the numbers one more time, frowning at the result. There was still no reason why they should have failed. The capacitors were still at full capacity…were they?

Cisco glanced down at his watch. It was one in the morning. Everyone should already be back in bed, so there wouldn’t be anyone to know…And he had to know…What if Joe was right? What if Dr. Wells had actually done something?

Cisco shook his head. He was being ridiculous! This was Dr. Wells! The man was in a wheelchair! He’d done everything for them! He’d given Cisco a chance, he’d stood by Cisco in everything!

What was against him anyway? Paranoia? A few people standing against him? What was that to Cisco? It was Hartley, that’s what it was. It was a jerk, who was trying to get between Cisco and his mentor. The person who had been a better father to him than his own father had been. And yet…

It was also Joe. It was also Cisco’s own instincts. How could he ignore his instincts?

Cisco shook his head to clear it. It was just late at night, that’s all. He needed to get to bed. This was messing with him. Except…

Cisco shook his head. Curse him and his stupid curiosity! He’d just go investigate, be done with it, and be gone within an hour. Then he’d go home, get to bed, and not think of it any more. It was insanity, that’s what it was! Pure insanity, to doubt Dr. Wells! It was just late at night.

 _It’s just late at night._ He reminded himself as he hurried down the corridor and entered the elevator to the containment field, getting ready to examine the machinery.

 

Eobard was just about to head home. Barry was getting suspicious. He was already enlisting the help of Eobard’s ancestor, even if Barry didn’t fully understand the implications just yet. Still, Eobard wouldn’t be able to hide here for much longer. The knowledge that Barry had already traveled in time was more than a small consolation to him though. With Barry so close, maybe Eobard’s reveal could be factored into the plan. With the right motivation…

He nearly swore as he saw Cisco investigating the containment field. He could barely keep an eye on Barry piecing things together, he didn’t need someone else figuring it out! Barry he could plan on. But if Cisco figured it out, that could be a serious problem. Cisco was always the wild card in the equation. It was almost impossible to predict that level of hyper creative genius. Caitlin had been easy to predict, with her grief and unwavering loyalty. She was a calm force. But Cisco…

Cisco was a loose cannon. He would be loyal to what he considered the greater good. Eobard had once considered trying to gain Cisco’s loyalty, but the engineer’s conscience would get in the way. No matter how Cisco tried to work alongside Eobard, the child’s own heart would pull at him until he sided with Barry. It was a sad part about working with such loyal people.

If he had to kill Cisco, that really would be a shame. The kid really had such potential… Eobard stopped. Perhaps this second threat was more a blessing in disguise than he had originally thought. This could still be used to his advantage. With Barry so close to travelling through time, maybe Eobard didn’t need this guise any more. Maybe he could finally stop pretending.

 

It still didn’t make sense.  The capacitors were still fully functioning. There was no reason…no reason at all, for the trap to have failed that night. The data was the exact same he was getting from his computer upstairs, and he’d checked everything. He moved over, examining the panel that the Reverse Flash had damaged that night. He poked around it, then stumbled back as the Reverse Flash suddenly appeared before him.

Cisco was about to grab his phone and pray that Barry got there in time, until he realized that the Reverse Flash wasn’t actually there. He was just…a recording? What? What did that mean? That the Reverse Flash hadn’t actually been there that night? But he had…he’d beaten up Dr. Wells. But how could he not have been there? Who beat up Wells that night? Because those wounds had been real…they had to have been…What…?

A slow clapping sound filled the air and Cisco turned around. Dr. Wells was standing there. Dr. Wells was _standing_ in the elevator doorway, clapping, and he was the Reverse Flash, but then-

_I’m going to die here._

Suddenly his mind blanked out, blue filling his vision as he relived that dream again. That terrible, horrible nightmare, where Dr. Wells…he killed him. It was happening all over again. How…how had he seen his own death?! He was going to die down here, Barry wouldn’t get to him in time. He was as good as dead.

 

Eobard had been about to begin on a long speech, probably something to try to justify his actions. He found himself compelled to speak to someone about his actions. Some confessional urge he would have to rectify soon. But then the kid froze. His eyes were glazed over, unseeing even as Thawne stood before him. Thawne frowned, standing directly in front of Cisco. Easily within reach of the kid. This silence…it was worrying.

Suddenly Cisco snapped out of it, and upon seeing Thawne he stumbled back, back hitting one of the cords to the field, knocking it out of alignment and rendering the trap utterly useless, in actuality.

“S-stay away from me, don’t you come near me!” Cisco was beginning to hyperventilate, losing his composure as Thawne moved closer, annoyed as Cisco backed himself into a corner on the ground.

“You’re-oh god-you’re him. You’re the Reverse Flash, you’re going to kill me, oh go-”

Thawne quickly knelt to the ground, slamming a hand over Cisco’s mouth. “Shut up, would you?”

Cisco’s eyes were wide as saucers, but he nodded. Thawne slowly stood up, releasing Cisco.

“You…what? This...” Cisco was being quieter though, despite his ramblings, so that was good. Then what he said next threw Thawne’s plans completely off track. “This isn’t like the dream at all…”

Thawne turned, abandoning any script he might have had when he entered the room. “What dream?” Cisco turned white, as if barely believing he’d even said the words aloud. Cisco began to shake his head, but Thawne vibrated, allowing the red to bleed into his eyes. “ _What dream, Francisco?”_

The kid curled into himself more, arms raised to shield himself from Thawne, but Thawne grabbed one of his arms and hauled him up off the ground. Cisco let out a squawk, and a moment later Thawne had him against the wall, neck in his hand. Cisco was shaking now, but at least he answered. “I…I started having a dream about this, about a month ago…that I found out who you were and…and you killed me.”

A month ago? What had happened a month ago that would prompt-

Barry. Barry had time travelled. But for Cisco to have seen that, oh…now that DID change things.

Thawne lowered Cisco till his feet were touching the ground again, but didn’t let him out of his grip. Now that he knew…

“Cisco…You don’t even know what you are, do you?” Cisco just shook in his grip. It was clear to Thawne that he wouldn’t be getting any more from the kid tonight. He sighed. It was time to set his plan into action. Moving his grip to the back of Cisco’s neck, he tensed to run. Cisco’s eyes grew wide, but before he could say anything they were off.

 

What did Dr. Wells mean, what he was? Cisco didn’t have time to ask though, because a moment later, they were running. Cisco wasn’t against speed, but this was purely nauseating. Everything blurred together, and after a few minutes Cisco just closed his eyes and focused on breathing. Thawne had a tight grip on the back of his neck and underneath his legs, holding him tight. A part of Cisco wanted to fight, to get this monster away from him… monster…

Cisco sucked in another breath. Dr. Wells was a monster. His father figure was a monster… everything Cisco knew about his world slowly began crumbling around him.

Cisco didn’t have too long to focus on that, as after a few minutes they were stopped, coming to rest in an abandoned warehouse.

The inside was…typical. Dark, musty, if someone paid the electric bill they weren’t using the lights. Chains everywhere… Cisco shivered.

“You have my apologies, but precautions must be made.” Cisco barely looked up before Thawne had locked a set of cuffs around his wrist, yanking it behind his back and quickly cuffing the other one there, keeping his arms stretched around a chain.

Cisco struggled in the bonds, but there wasn’t much he could do. The chain was a long one, stretching up to the ceiling. The cuffs were just barely loose enough that they wouldn’t cut off his circulation. They were far too tight for comfort. Even if he were the type that enjoyed that sort of thing.

The fear had slowly dissipated, leaving a steady stream of anger in its wake. “What do you think you can do now? Barry and Caitlin will notice that I’m missing!”

Thawne nodded, working on…something glowing. That was never a good sign. “Oh, I’m counting on it. I’m also counting on the fact that no one will find you any time soon.”

Cisco swallowed, trying his best to ignore the constant voice in the back of his head that told him not to poke the bear, it was already awake. “You think you can just keep me here? Chained up, and that no one will find me? You think you can keep me as your prisoner? What the hell is wrong with you? You’re a sick son of a”

He had to remind himself to keep breathing as Thawne slammed a hand across his mouth. “Just because I put up with your ramblings doesn’t mean you should be testing me. Stay quiet before I decide to silence you permanently. ”

Cisco fought the surging panic and tried to breathe, beginning to shake as the edge of anxiety clung to him. Thawne stepped away, and Cisco broke down, the shaking becoming uncontrollable, something completely foreign to him, even with the panic attacks he used to get as a child. Everything felt…wrong. The air SOUNDED wrong, and the rusty chains he was attached to through the handcuffs felt painful under his fingertips. After a few minutes the anxiety passed, but the feeling of _wrongness_ wouldn’t leave.

Thawne sat at a table, working on his project, glancing over at Cisco every few minutes. Cisco was curled up on the floor, shoes barely keeping out the chill. Thankfully the worst of winter had already passed, and any problems with the chill shouldn’t be life threatening. He severely hoped so. The inside of the warehouse barely had any light, so Cisco doubted he’d be able to see much of the outside world while he was here.

As much as he tried to stay awake, Cisco found himself drifting off, the exhaustion of today starting to catch up with him. He tried to fight it, but his eyelids started to droop. A part of him hoped that this had all been another strange dream, and that he’d wake up in the morning safe in his own bed, cursing himself for watching so much late night television.

He jarred awake again at a noise, only to see that Thawne had moved, getting ready to go. “Where are you going?” Cisco asked, starting to panic a bit.

Thawne looked up, as if just seeing Cisco for the first time. “Nothing for you to bother yourself with.”

Cisco glared at him, but then Thawne was approaching, and Cisco backed himself up as far as he could get, trying to get away from Thawne. Thawne pulled out a piece of cloth, wrapping it tightly between his hands.

Cisco shook his head violently. “No, I’ll be quiet, you don’t have to do that. Please, please don-” Cisco’s begging was muffled by the gag that Thawne tied tightly behind his head.

“Don’t worry,” Thawne grinned before patting Cisco none too gently on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Then we can have a proper talk about this situation we seem to have found ourselves in.”

He stood up to leave, and Cisco closed his eyes, trying to breathe around the coarse obstruction in his mouth. A few minutes after Thawne left he broke down into sobs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco is missing, and Barry is conflicted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOODNESS THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU GUYS!!! I woke up this morning and looked at my computer and was BLOWN AWAY by the response to this! Thank you so much!!! I'm really excited to see what you all think of these next few chapters!!

The first thing Barry heard was his phone going off. He rolled over, about to ignore it and go back to sleep, when he saw who it was from. What did Joe want at this hour of the morning?

He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and answering it. “’ello?”

“Barry, it’s Joe, get to S.T.A.R. labs now. Dr. Wells…he’s taken Cisco.”

Barry was dressed in an instant and to S.T.A.R. labs before Joe could even hang up the phone.

“Joe? What do you mean? What’s-” he stopped when he saw Caitlin, sobbing in her chair. “What happened?”  

Joe directed him to a chair, having him sit down. “We were right, Wells was the Reverse Flash, and he’s taken Cisco.”

Barry stared up at him. “But…how do we know? Is there footage?”

Caitlin shook her head. “The wheelchair, it’s…it’s empty. Wells is gone, and Cisco’s not anywhere to be found either. He’s not answering his phone, and according to his landlord he never made it back to his apartment last night. Video footage was all disabled. The only people with those codes were Wells and Cisco…” She broke down again, and Barry went over to hug her.

Joe shook his head. “I’m going to have to file a missing person’s report with Singh. Try to explain this as…delicately as I can.”

Barry nodded, staying with Caitlin, a hand around her shoulders. Cisco’s been taken…How? Where? What had happened here last night?

 

Cisco awoke with a start, the loud clanging of the warehouse door jarring him from his dreams. He tugged experimentally at the chain again, finding it unyielding and strong. In a few moments Thawne was there again, heading over to the strange workbench. After setting something down, Thawne came back over to where Cisco was, reaching back behind Cisco’s head to remove the gag.

As soon as it was gone Cisco brought his knee up and lashed out at Thawne, kicking him away. Thawne fell back by a foot, but quickly recovered. In an instant he had Cisco by the throat, lifting him as far as the chain would allow. Cisco gasped, trying to breathe.

“What did you think that would accomplish?” Thawne asked, his eyes red once again. “Even if you had somehow managed to injure me, knock me out, even, what would your plan be then? You think I have the key on me? I wouldn’t be so dumb. No, the only way you’re leaving this place is if I let you go. Get used to it, you’re going to be here for a while.”

He dropped Cisco, who landed on his side, arms wrenching painfully behind him. He coughed, the cuffs preventing him from reaching up to his neck to protect it. A hand landed on his shoulder but Cisco shook it off, forcing himself to remain calm.

Thawne sighed, then stood up again. “Try something like that again, and I cannot guarantee that you’ll make it out of here with your voice intact.”

 

Barry was, in all honesty, confused. Iris was starting to notice too. He and Eddie were working hard on keeping her in the dark, but she was bound to start poking around. It was in her nature. It was part of what made her such a good journalist.

Part of that confusion certainly stemmed from the overwhelming betrayal from Doctor Wells. He’d trusted the man who’d killed his mother. And…somehow he’d been playing them the whole time. But why? What was his angle?

The other confusion came from Cisco’s disappearance. The main problem was the complete lack of sense it made. Why would Wells take Cisco? There were no signs of struggle, no signs of anything to indicate that Cisco had been abducted. Singh had said so himself, that he would look into it when he got a moment, but without evident proof, there was no reason to suspect that Cisco hadn’t chosen to go with Wells on his own.

Joe insisted that the only reason he said that was because he didn’t know about Wells’ powers, or that Barry was the Flash. But they couldn’t bring him into it as well. As the captain it would be his responsibility to report Barry were he to know. So he simply couldn’t.

Cisco could be in mortal danger right now were Joe right.

But Dr. Wells would never hurt Cisco. Right?

 

There was a startling difference here between Thawne and Wells. The man Cisco had known had somehow disappeared behind this fierce, cruel person before him. Fierce, cruel, and incredibly silent.

Cisco glared at the back of his head where he was working on his…thing. Seriously, what the heck was that blue glowing cylinder?

Cisco was sure he’d understand the science behind it were it explained to him, but Thawne was being as quiet as the grave. And Cisco couldn’t exactly ask with the gag in his mouth.

Yeah, Thawne had put that back after a few minutes of Cisco’s unending demand for answers. For whatever reason he’d originally thought Cisco would be…what, complacent? That maybe his hold over Cisco would extend to him being a model captive.

Yeah, no. He was going to go down kicking and screaming, thank you very much.

At least the dreams had faded, but the feeling of _wrongness_ hadn’t left yet. There was some instinct inside of him trying to tell him something was off. But he couldn’t place what it was…

Broken bones? No, it wasn’t that level of pain. Dehydration? Maybe. But Thawne had made sure Cisco was drinking at least 64 ounces of liquid per day. He’d counted the water bottles.

And while he wasn’t getting as much food as he normally would, Thawne made sure he wasn’t starving either.

So what was happening? It was like some sense he didn’t know he had suddenly stopped working.

He sighed, trying to drift off to sleep again. That was one thing about being kidnapped. No responsibilities keeping him up at all hours of the night. Still. He kind of missed those responsibilities. They’d been something to do.

 

Now Felicity was in town. Barry was happy that she was there, but at the same time, her timing couldn’t have been much worse. Cisco and Wells had both been missing without a trace for over a week, and the tensions between the remainder of the team were high.

Eddie was convinced they could be doing more to find Cisco, Caitlin was shutting down, Joe was getting snippier, and Barry…Barry couldn’t bring himself to trust anyone other than Joe or Iris. And he couldn’t talk to Iris, so he couldn’t talk to her either.

He tried to get himself to trust Eddie too, but there was just too much coincidence. The exact day he told Eddie about him being the Flash is the day Wells disappears along with Cisco? No. Too much coincidence.

And now…now Felicity and her new boyfriend were inviting them all out to dinner. Because things weren’t awkward enough before.

 

“Okay, what is going on with you!?” Felicity rounded on him as soon as they’d excused themselves from the awkward fight about to go down in the other room. “You’ve been acting super strange since we got here and don’t tell me about it being a ‘bad time’. We’ve got our own share of bad times back in Starling. I get it, Wells is a murderer and Cisco’s been kidnapped but that doesn’t explain why you’ve been holding back from everyone else?”

Barry sighed. How did he explain this? “Wells…Wells convinced a lot of people to do a lot of things. He convinced me that he was trying to help me. It’s just…how do I know anything for sure? The footage was destroyed,”

“Which is on its own suspect,”

“But how do I know that Wells didn’t convince other people to join him? How do I know Cisco was really taken? How do I know Caitlin’s not really working for him? How do I know any of these thing?”

“Woah, okay, Caitlin and Cisco are NOT working with Doctor Wells!”

Felicity reached out her hand, grasping Barry’s arm. “I know this is hard for you, but it’s hard on them too. I met them while you were in that coma. I got to know them. They’re good people. And they wouldn’t side with him. I know they wouldn’t. Neither would Eddie.”

Barry began to open his mouth but Felicity cut him off. “I’ve seen how you’ve been staring at him, okay? I know. You don’t trust him either. But working this long with Oliver, I’ve gotten a pretty good read on people. You can trust Eddie. Him, Caitlin, Cisco, they need you to believe in them. If you can’t, you’re never going to beat Wells. More than that you’re never going to find Cisco again if you don’t trust that he is better than that.”

 

S.T.A.R. labs was quiet at this time of night. Bree had been stopped, and while Ray had been stung, Barry had been able to bring him back. Caitlin had made sure he was alright before he and Felicity had headed off back to Starling. Barry hoped that his insight into the suit had been helpful, but he had a feeling that Cisco would have been able to do more.

Cisco…

Barry was sure the engineer’s absence was what was causing the team to fall apart. His humor was infectious. Barry sighed, walking down the halls away from the cortex. He wanted to believe Felicity, that Cisco would never betray him like that. But after everything, he wasn’t sure if he could. Wasn’t sure what to think.

He shook his head, yelling in frustration as he punched the wall.

His fist instantly hurt, and he pulled it back, rubbing it. His eyes widened as the part where he’d punched glowed blue, and the wall pulled back, revealing a hidden room.

He stared, then stepped inside. The Reverse Flash’s suit hung up on the wall, and a pale light illuminated the room, leading to a pedestal. Behind the pedestal, as if projected by a hologram, were a series of video feeds. About them.

Barry couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Wells had been using them. All of them. He’d recorded them, planted bugs in all their houses, found all their weaknesses, had been playing them the whole time. He’d been planning this for so-

That’s when he saw the screen in the lower corner. The footage from the screens in the cortex might have been erased, but here, they were stored perfectly. The footage of Cisco examining the containment field.

At first it didn’t seem too out of the ordinary, except that this was the night Cisco disappeared. Barry kept watching, unsure of what he was going to see. The containment field lighting up and the Reverse Flash appearing weren’t what Barry was expecting. So, the Reverse Flash from Christmas was a hologram?

But then Harrison Wells was there, standing, and Cisco turned.  Barry held his breath, unsure of what to see. It seemed that Cisco and Harrison were talking, even if Barry couldn’t hear what was said.

He waited to see what happened, but for the most part Cisco was still…too still. What was happening? Why was Cisco so still? Wasn’t he shocked? Why did he look so…out of it? Then Cisco fell backwards, shaking. Cisco had scrambled to get his back in a corner, shaking. They’d interacted, Wells clearly an aggressor in this encounter. Barry berated himself for ever doubting Cisco. But then…Cisco had covered his head, and Wells had grabbed his arm, hauling him up and throwing him into the wall, hand tight against Cisco’s throat.

A few moments later, they were gone, the telltale lightning quickly fading from the screen. Barry wanted to throw up. Cisco had been in serious danger for the past two weeks, and Barry had been such an idiot he hadn’t even treated this like a proper investigation. Cisco was in immediate danger, and if they couldn’t find him…

Barry yelled, punching the wall. “How am I supposed to help him?!”

A strange figure appeared in the place of the screens. “By becoming faster.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, please don't be too hard on Barry, we all know he can be an idiot some times. I was trying to base this upon Barry's own idiocy in episode 18, and since this is an AU where Cisco wasn't abducted by Captain Cold in episode 16, Barry has even less reason to trust him. But, as we can clearly see, he has seen the error of his ways and is ready to kick Thawne's ass! (Which won't happen just yet. We'll get there. :) )


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry gets an explanation, and Cisco makes a move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EEEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEK!!!!!!!  
> OH MY GOODNESSS!!!!!   
> Thank you all so much for your response! I can't believe it!!! Aghghghghgh!!!! Thank you all!!!!

Barry shrieked at the sudden voice, whirling around. “Who. But. Who are you?!”

The figure, a construction resembling a female figure with few details, bathed in electric light, tilted its head. “I, am Gideon. An interactive artificial intelligence.”

He stared. “Nice to…meet you?”

“Nice to meet you too, Barry Allen.”

…Very polite for a robot in a room created by the man who killed his mother. “Wha- you know who I am?”

“Of course, Barry Allen. Director of CCPD, CSI division.”

“Director…?” he muttered.

“Also known as the Flash, founding member of-”

“How do you know all this?” he interrupted. Though, founding member of something? Cool,

“I know everything documented about this timline,” she answered, as if it were obvious. Given what she’d said already, he figured it should have been.

“So, you know what I can do to stop Wells?”

“It’s not covered in any social media forms, or any books. This has been your aim for a long time, and as of yet your speed has not managed to-”

“How do I find him and save Cisco?”

She tilted her head. “I already said this. You must get faster. That is what he wants, after all.”

“Why does he want that? And why should I do what he wants?

“He wants your speed because he lost his own. He broke it, the night he tried to kill you. He created this alternate timeline to the one he was living in, as such he had to try to repair the damages and remake his own timeline in order to get back to his world. As to why you should comply, it is the most guaranteed way to assure Cisco’s relative safety. And it gives you the strength to possibly fight him yourself, and subdue him.”

Barry was reeling from all the information. “Why…why would you tell me all of this?”

“I will answer any question given to me by you.”

“Wait…why me?”

“Because. You created me.”

 

Time didn’t mean anything. Cisco had stopped caring about how long had passed. He was alone in the warehouse with his thoughts. Like usual. Thawne had been right. The only way those cuffs were opening was if he released Cisco. Thawne would never let Cisco go. No one was coming to save Cisco. That didn’t mean Cisco couldn’t find a way to save himself.

The warehouse itself couldn’t be that well locked. The only problem Cisco would have was in getting out of the stupid cuffs. Yeah, Thawne took them off a few times a day, but he kept an eye on Cisco the entire time he was free of them. However, Thawne had made a mistake last time he’d relocked them. He’d left them loose after noting the scars forming on Cisco’s arms. Cisco didn’t care about the scars. He was sure he would after a while, but at that point, he couldn’t care less what state his wrists were in. All that mattered was that Thawne had made a mistake. He’d tried to be ‘kind’.

Cisco closed his eyes, steeling his nerves. He’d seen youtube videos on how to do it before, never honestly expecting to need the knowledge. But once Barry had become the Flash, Cisco figured it was better safe than sorry. Now he was glad he’d looked it up. He sucked in a deep breath, then quickly wrenched his thumb out of socket. He bit back the scream from the pain, sucking in breaths. He took a few moments to let the pain die down, ignoring the way his eyes had teared up.

After a minute or so, he gently slid his wrist out of the cuff, bringing them in front of him for the first time in far too long. He immediately pulled the gag out of his mouth with the other hand, throwing it as far away from himself as he could. He tried to stand up, almost toppling from a lack of balance.

Cisco shot out his uninjured hand, steadying himself on the bench. That darned bench…Eobard had been using it for something. He was studying something. Cisco knew that. He also knew that whatever Thawne was working on was something terrible. Something that Cisco couldn’t allow to happen.  

He grinned to himself. He might as well throw a wrench in Thawne’s plan while he was getting out of here. “What have you been working on, eh Thawne?”

 

Cisco didn’t let himself linger on the project for too long, allowing himself just enough time to subtly tamper with it without Thawne noticing. Then he focused all of his energy on getting the hell out of there.

There weren’t any main exits, and the doors all seemed barred from the outside. While the doors didn’t seem so sturdy, Cisco wanted a way out that wouldn’t take all of his limited energy to break down. He glanced around, opening the boxes as best he could with only one hand, trying to find something useful to him. It was all useless. Some lightbulbs, some random snack foods, some knickknacks. All of it was useless to him.

He glanced up, to the windows that had been taunting him ever since he’d arrived in this cursed place. Maybe what was inside the boxes couldn’t help, but the boxes themselves? There was a shelf that led up to the window. If he could just get on top of the shelf...

Cisco squared his shoulders, shoving against the boxes to the best of his ability with a finger out of place. Slowly, the first one began shifting across the concrete, and once they were moving everything else fell into place. The difficulty Cisco found was in climbing the boxes. The first time he tried to hold anything with his hand he nearly choked on a scream. He grit his teeth together, electing to jump and use his other arm to hold the ledge as he scrambled to get over it, using his injured arm to prop up his weight as he hauled himself over the ledge.

He sat on the box gasping. Just two more of these things to do. At least these were already stacked, nothing to worry about there. Cisco squared his muscles, ready to climb again when telltale lightning filled the room, and in a moment Cisco was on the floor, thrown down by Thawne.

Cisco gasped at the pain, feeling several bruises already forming. Thawne was on top of him before the room had stopped spinning. Suddenly Cisco’s face stung, and Cisco could taste the blood in his mouth. He knew a punch when he felt one, he didn’t need to look up to see Thawne holding his shirt in one hand with a raised fist in the other.

“ _Try that again, and I cannot guarantee that you’ll be making it out of this warehouse alive. I might have been fond of you, but that fondness has its limitations. I was too lenient before. I won’t make that mistake again.”_

Cisco glared into the glowing red eyes of his mentor. “I don’t need the fondness of a monster,” he spat out.

Thawne snarled, placing a vibrating hand against Cisco’s leg, letting it sink through the skin. Cisco bucked at the pain, a scream ripping its way out of his throat. A strong blast hit Thawne in the chest, sending him flying into the boxes. He was up again in a moment, as if worried that Cisco might run away. He didn’t need to worry though, between the shattered leg and the dislocated finger, Cisco wasn’t going anywhere. He curled up on himself, sobs wracking his frame at the pain.

Thawne approached gently this time, keeping his distance. “Cisco, let me see your hand.”

Cisco shook his head, refusing to let this monster get to another part of him “Cisco. You need medical attention. I know how to dislocate something. You don’t. You might have caused permanent damage, you need to let me see it.”

Cisco shook his head, shattered leg still splayed on the floor. No sudden remorse was going to change the fact that Thawne was a monster. Cisco bit back a scream as he was suddenly lifted, his leg hurting, despite how gentle Thawne was being. Thawne began moving, slowly, and Cisco just closed his eyes, wishing this whole nightmarish situation away.

After a moment, Thawne lowered him onto some form of cot, taking his uninjured hand and cuffing it to the bed frame. “You’re not going anywhere, not with that leg as it is. It’s going to take at least a month to heal. Now. Why don’t I see that hand of yours?” Cisco wanted to protest, but it had been a month since he’d had a real bed, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. With one final sob as Thawne reset his hand, Cisco drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much happens in this chapter, but I'm ironing out the final details of the next one, which should be up soon. I didn't know where else to end this so....yeah. Next chapter, if everything goes according to plan, we should begin to see some hopefulness again. (Right in time for me to crush it to oblivion!!!)   
> ......yeah, I'd make a convincing super-villain. I'm that level of crazy.   
> (Oh, and I kind of imagined this warehouse to be similar to that of the warehouse in Zoom's lair? Kind of? Dunno.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two months of Cisco's absence...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm going to try to keep posting every day, but I'm starting to find some plot problems I didn't fix when I first wrote this, so some editing is happening which is slowing me down a little. I'm going to keep posting this as much as possible though :) So enjoy!

 

It had been almost a month and a half since Cisco had been taken, and they still knew nothing. At first they’d tried to get Gideon to help them find Cisco, but she was relatively useless at that. Apparently Wells hadn’t trusted her completely.

“Gideon, why did Wells take Cisco?” Barry asked, trying this investigation at a different source.

“Because he knew.” That was useless.

“Knew what?”

“He didn’t say.”

So, Wells took Cisco because Cisco knew he was the Reverse Flash? That didn’t make sense. Wells had revealed himself by disappearing that night. This whole situation made not enough sense. If Wells was going to use Cisco as a bargaining chip, then he would have contacted them before now. But there was nothing. No one had seen either Cisco or Wells since that night. Barry was almost concerned that Cisco might have been killed, but Gideon seemed sure that he was still alive. And if Gideon was sure, then he had to be too.

He had to keep looking.

 

Joe was recovering on the hospital bed in S.T.A.R. labs at the time. Iris was sitting in the room with him, still processing Barry’s being the Flash. Joe was still processing Iris being engaged to Eddie.

“So Wells-the Reverse Flash, took Cisco because, why?”

Joe sighed. “Baby, I wish I knew. We haven’t heard a thing about it in over a month. Barry’s been looking everywhere. It’s eating at all of us.” Iris nodded, still shaken by it all.

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“Stay out of it. Don’t give him a reason to target you too.”

“Dad, I’m already in it! I have to be able to help!”

Caitlin stepped into the room then. “We all feel that way, but there’s nothing we can do. Barry’s still searching, but Wells is fast, and smart. There’s not much we can do but hope and pray.”

Barry zipped in for a moment to grab a calorie bar, then was gone again. He raced through the streets, zipping through every building it was lawful to enter, and a few that it wasn’t. He didn’t care. He needed to find Cisco, and soon.

 

Cisco barely even woke up when Thawne removed his gag, and Thawne brushed the hair away from Cisco’s eyes and Cisco flinched away from the touch.

Thawne thought for a moment, then reached out and gently traced the outline of the bruise on Cisco’s face. Cisco flinched and tried to duck away from Thawne’s hand, but it was a brief moment of energy before he collapsed back against the chain. Thawne sighed, and stood up. He worked for a few hours, turning back to see Cisco slightly more responsive. He wasn’t talking to him though. It’d been weeks since he’d done that. A pity.

As Thawne left he put the gag back in place. Cisco was back to glaring at him. Thawne laughed a little. “You really are a surprise, Cisco. All those years working for me, and I never knew this side of you. The stubborn, angry rebel. The hero. The changer of worlds. And yes, plural. You have a great destiny before you. Now if you don’t mind, I really need to get moving with my plan. It’s time for me to go home.” Thawne stood up left the warehouse, carrying the cylinder with him.

 

When Wells had left the Cylinder in the particle accelerator, they’d expected some larger fight. And, granted, the meta humans had all escaped, but when he had gone to fight Wells… it was as if Wells had given up. The fight had barely lasted a minute before Barry had Wells pinned beneath him.

“Where is Cisco, what did you do to him?!” Barry screamed in his face.

Wells grinned through a mouthful of blood. “Why don’t I make you a deal, eh Barry? Cisco’s location, for my safe passage home.”

 

Opal City…Cisco had been in Opal City. Barry sped there in an instant, then froze. Cisco was cuffed to a rusted chain, blood on the cuffs and a dirty gag in his mouth. His hair was hanging in his face, legs splayed out in front of him. He seemed to be asleep at the moment. Barry cursed himself again for ever doubting what had happened that night.

He knelt in front of Cisco, removing the gag gently, so as to not wake Cisco up. It looked like Cisco didn’t get enough sleep. He winced at the bruising on Cisco’s cheek. There were several scars. Wells had lost his temper a lot. Barry moved around to uncuff Cisco, only to find that the cuffs weren’t normal. Underneath the dried blood, there was something…odd, about these cuffs. They glowed, an odd pale blue. It was when Barry touched them that he realized what they did. They were power represents. Somehow Wells had managed to find a way to stifle a metahuman’s powers. Barry shuddered, feeling the speed force drain from his system. He backed up, releasing the cuffs, and was glad when his speed came back with him.

But why had Wells put anti-metahuman cuffs on Cisco? Unless…

That’s why he took him. That’s why Wells took Cisco. Because he was a meta. Barry couldn’t be sure until they got back and ran some tests, but for that he’d have to find a way to get Cisco out of those cuffs.

Barry glanced around, trying to find something to use. Eventually he knelt down to Cisco’s level, gently shaking the younger man awake.

Cisco startled, pulling away from Barry gasping, fear flickering through his eyes. “Hey, hey, Cisco, it’s me. You’re safe, I’m getting you out of here.”

Cisco stared at him, unbelieving at first. Then it clicked in. “Barry, you’re here?” Barry nodded, pulling Cisco into an awkward hug.

“I’m getting you out of here. But I need to know, do you know if there’s a key to the cuffs? I can’t get them open.”

Cisco shivered, but nodded. “It’s over there,” he said, nodding towards the other side of the warehouse. Barry nodded, speeding over there and beginning to look around all the boxes and things. “Barry!” Cisco called out, and Barry almost broke with how dry Cisco’s voice sounded. Two months unused… But Cisco was still speaking. “It’s not… it’s behind the wall.”

Barry looked at him. “But how did he get to it?”

Cisco shuddered. “He phased, Barry. So he was the only one who could get to it.”

So that even if someone did stumble across Cisco, they wouldn’t be able to free him. Barry was the only one that could. Barry squared his shoulders, resting his hands against the wall. He closed his eyes and let the vibrations carry through him, into the other room. In a minute he was out, key in hand.

Cisco was out of the cuffs in the blink of an eye, and he already looked better. He rubbed at his wrists, standing up. He almost fell down again, and Barry caught him.

“Hold on, we’re a long way from home.” Then they were running.

 

It had healed. It had healed weak, with how little he’d used his leg over the past month, but it had healed. Caitlin was helping him stand up, still staring at the bruises on his face. Cisco had lashed out at him one day as Thawne was checking on his leg, so Thawne had struck him in return. Thankfully they were healing, barely evident anymore.

Cisco tried to walk, but his leg still didn’t feel healed. He nearly collapsed at the pressure, but Caitlin caught him, leading him towards a chair. “It’s going to be a lot of physical therapy for you young man.” She said with a lighthearted smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. This had been terrifying for all of them. Suddenly Cisco found himself in a tight hug, Caitlin careful not to overbalance him.

“It’s alright Cait, I’m back,” he murmured, holding her tightly.

She pulled back and smiled. “I know you are. I just…it’s been a lot to take in.”

She helped lower him to the chair, so he could get back to the computer. “Oh, I have missed you…” he muttered, stretching his fingers over the keyboard.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, have your (brief) happy ending :) You guys deserve it :)   
> But it's not an ending. It's a chapter end. We're about to delve into another of my many confusing tags :) (Have you noticed how somebody's missing? We're gonna see them soon :) )


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you think the happy would last?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So......yeah. It doesn't stay good for very long. I'm sorry. But don't worry, we're getting towards some recovery stuff. Slowly. We'll get there. Lots of protectiveness coming. :)

Barry had opened the wormhole for Thawne and let him go. A part of Cisco was furious that Thawne hadn't been dealt the justice he deserved, but another part of him understood that it was the only way to save him. 

Mostly though, Cisco was just furious. 

He could walk, which was good. In the last few days he'd been scared he wouldn't have that ability at all. But he could, even though Caitlin insisted he was pushing himself too hard. He could also speak again, slowly gaining his voice back from months of disuse. By the second day the bruises around his face were starting to heal up nicely, and Caitlin was starting to decrease the pain killers he was taking. He insisted he didn't need them, but she was adamant that he would sit down, shut up, and let her care for him. 

He couldn't believe it when they told him Iris knew. Iris and Eddie. That was it, he figured. All the important people knew. 

And they'd tried to get a missing person's case going. Of course, with meta humans and the lack of evidence Thawne had left, they hadn't gotten far with that, but they'd still tried. Yay, more paperwork when he was better. 

Barry wouldn't leave his side all of the second day, except for a few seconds to grab whatever he needed. And for the past few days, he'd been stuck in S.T.A.R. labs, resting. 

Three days of staying at the labs, learning how to walk on his leg again, and Cisco was ready to scream. He didn't, of course. But he was ready to. He loved Barry and Caitlin and all the others, but it had been two months by himself. Suddenly being surrounded by people again was overwhelming. 

So when Caitlin had given him the all clear to walk, he insisted on going back to his apartment. Thank goodness for automatic payments and salary based paychecks, it was still standing. 

Caitlin of course insisted upon driving him, and he let her. That was one thing he wouldn't be doing for a little while still. 

But when she went to walk him inside is where he drew the line. "Caitlin, I'm fine! I can make it to my own front doorstep!" 

"But aren't there stairs, you live on the fifth floor-" 

"Cait, there's an elevator. Sure I don't use it much, but it's still there. It works. I can get myself to my own front door. Please, give me a little dignity here," he pleaded. 

Eventually she relented. "Alright...but I expect to hear from you as soon as you get to your apartment." 

"Caitlin, I'm not texting you while you're driving. I know you, I know you'll check it." 

"Fine, but text me this evening, alright?" 

"Fine! Now go enjoy your time with Ronnie!" 

She smiled, returning to her car as Cisco made it inside the building. He waited for the elevator, sighing. 

He missed his apartment. It was his home. Somewhere he could finally be safe from all the chaos. And yeah, it terrified him that Thawne had gotten away. But...

But what good did it do him to live in fear? 

 

The elevator paused on the 3rd floor. Odd, most of his neighbors were in for the day at this hour. But then the woman stepped onto the elevator, and Cisco just stared. The woman was gorgeous. Long blonde hair, and eyes that just sparkled with mischief.  

She smiled at him, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Um, hi! I'm Cisco," he introduced, reaching out to shake her hand. 

She accepted it, smiling again and letting their hands hold on for a few seconds. "Lisa. I'm new here." 

He didn't make it to the fifth floor. 

 

His head ached. Cisco winced, rolling over to rub at it. He froze as he felt the cuffs tug at his wrists, and the gag covering his mouth. He started freaking out, breathing heavily as panic flooded his system. Had it all been a dream? Did Thawne still have him? Had he finally lost his mind?

Then a hand was hauling him up, dragging him along. Cisco stumbled along after, his healing leg catching on the carpet, causing him to stumble. A second hand reached down, lifting Cisco and casually tossing him over a shoulder. That’s when Cisco’s brain started catching up with him.

Where was the chain? Why would Thawne try to drag Cisco anywhere? And why couldn’t he see?

That last question was answered as the person slung him off their shoulder, removing the blindfold. Ah, that was why. He’d been blindfolded. By…Heatwave.

The events of the evening came flooding back to him. The woman in the elevator, she'd flirted with him, then his vision began fading while they were still in the elevator. She must have drugged him. Because his life didn’t suck enough as it was.

Cisco focused on breathing around the gag. The first thing to do was to make sure he didn’t have a panic attack. That was a challenge enough as it was, given the incredible fear he’d developed of them over the past two months. Heatwave was saying something, but a ringing was building up in Cisco’s ears, and his leg started aching, pain pulsing through his leg and a sick numbness climbing up his arm. Everything started spinning, and he nearly toppled out of the chair.

He vaguely heard shouting, followed by a very stern “Get that out of his mouth!” Suddenly the gag was gone and Cisco was gulping in air, head on the floor. Suddenly there was a pillow beneath his head and the cuffs were gone, a paper bag in his hands.

He held the bag to his mouth, grateful as he watched it in and out, a reminder that he was actually breathing. His arm and leg still ached, but at least he wasn’t about to pass out from that.

He started becoming more aware of his surroundings to hear Heatwave and Cold arguing. “What was that about, Snart? Why should we care that the kid gets scared? Isn’t that the whole point?”

“Just because your own brain doesn’t work well doesn’t mean everyone else’s is equally unresponsive. A panic attack isn’t being ‘scared’. I’ve had them before. Did you call me scared when I couldn’t breathe after my dad came after me with that knife?”

“No, because he was a bastard that would hurt his own kids. He was a monster, you were a kid.”

Snart pointed down at Cisco. “He’s an engineer, we’re supervillains. While I might not know what caused him to have an attack now, and not when he confronted me at the train, I do know that he’s scared. We might hold the cards, but anxiety’s something you can’t always fight, no matter how much you know you have to.”

“He’s our prisoner.”

“He’s a kid,” retorted Cold.

“He’s calmed down,” Cisco turned his head slightly to see the woman from before. But, brown hair, instead of the blonde. And beautiful eyes. Seriously, that girl was-

“Sis,” Oh. Captain Cold’s sister. Of course. “Could you please take Mick out of here? I need to have some words with the kid.”

Cisco sat up slowly as the woman led Mick out of the room. Snart remained, staring at Cisco.

“Why did you kidnap me Snart?” he asked, anger starting to show through.

“What happened to your wrist?”

Cisco gulped, fidgeting with the bandages that still covered his scars. The bruise had gone down enough over the past few days that Snart probably couldn’t tell unless he was looking. The scars on his wrists, not so much. And his leg… if Cisco tried to walk on it right now he’d probably collapse. “What is it to you?”

A shrug. Of course. “Curious. What would cause someone so…brave, so confident, in the face of a known criminal…someone who would willingly risk their life for their friend. Someone who grinned alongside their friend, showing no signs of depression or anxiety,” So Snart had filmed the warehouse when they’d saved Caitlin. Cisco reached out as Snart was rambling, climbing back into the chair, trying to give himself some dignity. “What would cause someone like that to try to take their own life?”

That last part caught Cisco off guard. He hadn’t been expecting it. He laughed. It started out as a simple snort of disbelief, but turned into a full on laugh. It felt good to laugh. To express something other than the crippling fear. To pretend everything was alright. Snart just stared at him. “You think I did this?” Cisco finally asked, dropping it all. Letting the fear and the pain all show. “You think I, what? Took a razor to my skin? A knife? You think I tried to escape?” Cisco shook his head. “Well you’re right. This did happen trying to escape. But not trying to escape life. I wouldn’t dishonor my friends like that.”

“But those bandages-”

“Are covering actual injuries. Yeah, Captain Cold’s not the only one who thought to kidnap the engineer. What’s your plan, eh? Hold me prisoner for a few weeks, wait for the Flash to get so distracted that he starts to lose his mind, then try to, I don’t know, capture him as well? Blow up half the city or something equally dumb? It’s been done before pal. Didn’t work out too great.”

“What happened to you?”

Cisco was done with it all. It was probably a terrible idea, but he didn’t care if Snart knew. He was too tired to care.

“A speedster named Eobard Thawne. He kidnapped me. Held me captive for 2 months. The bandages are covering the marks where the cuffs scraped up my wrists.”

Snart frowned, standing up, walking around Cisco where he was seated, letting his hand drag along the chair. Cisco tensed as Snart’s hand lingered on the gag. Thankfully he moved on, moving to sit down in the chair next to Cisco. “Is he why you’re so afraid of being gagged?”

Cisco shuddered. “He rarely took it out.”

Snart nodded. “What else did he do to you?”

Oh well, he’d already begun. “He kept me locked in a warehouse, the cuffs were attached to a chain,” Cisco shuddered, trying not to remember it all. “He rarely let me out. I didn’t have much water or food…” Cisco stopped talking, raising his hands to his hair, digging his nails into his scalp, trying to remind himself that he wasn’t there anymore.

“You’ve clearly still got some issues from this.”

Cisco bit out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, you think?”

“And your team still hasn’t gotten you therapy for it? The Flash doesn’t take his job as seriously as I thought.”

Cisco stared at him. “How long ago do you think that was? A week ago? Two? Maybe even a whole month?” Snart leaned back, starting to realize what he was saying.

“But when did,”

“Three days ago. The Flash finally found me three bloody days ago. I’m still medically ‘in shock’ from it. And you decided for, _whatever_ reason that you needed me. Well whatever sick, psycho reason you’ve got for kidnapping me, even someone as twisted as you are should understand that I. Can’t. Do it.”

Exhaustion washed over Cisco, and he sat back, expecting a cold-hearted ‘Whatever kid, work through your issues’. He wasn’t ready for Cold to stand up, gently lifting Cisco from the chair. Snart started walking forwards, leading Cisco by the arm, but Cisco collapsed as he put pressure on the leg. He really needed that physical therapy…

Snart moved to Cisco’s other side, lifting Cisco’s arm over his head and placing a hand on Cisco’s side. “I take it that speedster did that too?”

Cisco nodded, focusing on getting his foot to move properly. It didn’t take long for them to get where Snart was leading them. Snart lowered Cisco onto a couch, a very wide, soft one. Cisco was tempted to fall asleep, but Snart was holding his arm, examining the bandages, and that was just creepy.

Snart was silent for a few minutes, just unwrapping the bandages and staring at the scars underneath. Finally, he spoke. “Your thumb…you tried to escape?” Of course Snart would see that.

The scaring hadn’t fully healed yet. Maybe it never would. Cisco moved his finger experimentally, trying to find the right words. “Yeah…about a month in. Most of the time the cuffs were too tight to do anything. I guess after a month, he thought I wouldn’t try anything. I…um…I’d looked up videos about a year ago on how to dislocate your thumb to get out of cuffs. It hurt like hell, but I did it. I…um…he…” Cisco took a deep breath, trying to get the words out. “He caught me. Um…” His leg started hurting, still not ready to be thought about. “He broke my leg, vibrated his hand through my skin and shattered it.”

Cisco opened his eyes to see Snart was sitting perfectly still, hand still gentle, but the rest of his arm was a tight strain of muscle, as if Snart was holding himself back.

Snart took a moment, then spoke. “You tried to escape from a man who’d held you captive for a whole month, and he _shattered_ your leg in response?” Cisco shrank back at the anger in Cold’s voice. Cold saw this, and went back to examining Cisco’s arm. Eventually, he began rewrapping them. Cisco leaned back, ready to let sleep roll over him. But then Snart was speaking again. “What did you say his name was?”

Cisco sat up again. “Eobard Thawne.”

Cold thought. “Wasn’t that detective named Thawne?”

Cisco shifted awkwardly in his seat. “He’s Eddie’s distant relation from the future. We didn’t find out for a while.”

A chuckle from Cold now. “With a name like Eobard, he’d have some difficulty blending in.”

The betrayal still stung as Cisco bit out the words. “He went by Harrison Wells.”

Cold froze again, then gently lowered Cisco’s hand. Cisco glanced over to see that Snart biting his clenched fist, trying to keep himself under control. “Are you-”

“You mean the Harrison Wells who is your boss?” Cold interrupted. “The person you risked your life and reputation to defend? He locked you up, for two months?”

Cisco closed his eyes. "Yeah. Basically family. Probably screwed up my head a ton there,” he bit out as an almost-joke. 

Cold stood up, taking a deep breath. Cisco stared at him, holding his wrists carefully. Cold walked behind Cisco to grab something, and Cisco just closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep for once. He startled back up as something was draped over his shoulders, but it was just a blanket. A very…very fluffy blanket.

“Get some rest. I’ll be in the other room if you need anything. Try to sleep.”

Cisco stared at him. Yes, Cisco was still a prisoner. That hadn’t changed. But sleep…right now sleep sounded like an awesome idea.  And... since when was Cold nice to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't judge this too hard? I wrote it a few years ago and was just rereading it a few months back when I realized I was kind of writing this as...I don't know, some kind of therapy? So yeah, I relate on an emotional level with Cisco, so sometimes what he says and does is what I was wishing I could have said or done. (Yeah, I know. I'm using my writing to deal with my issues. That's mostly why this work is actually complete.)   
> Anyway! Please let me know what you thought! And, I am always editing what I've written, so if you want something to happen, please tell me! If I can't fit it into this one it might inspire a different work!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco and the Rogues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry this took so long! I swear I'm trying to update everything, but life just got even crazier! I'm gonna keep trying though! Pretty soon we'll be into the part where I have minimal editing to do, so we should hopefully soon get this all finished! Thank you for sticking through with me!

Len shook his head as he entered the kitchen. “We can’t go through with this, we need to send him back.”

Mick looked up, frowning, and even Lisa looked affronted. “After all the work I put into to getting him?”

“You goin’ soft here Snart?”

Cold shook his head. “We can’t do this. You saw how he responded when he woke up gagged.

Lisa shrugged. “Then don’t gag him! From what I heard, his voice is pretty cute.”

Len kept shaking his head, and Mick finally asked. “What’s this about Len?”

Len took a deep breath. “How much do you know about Harrison Wells?”

Lisa shrugged. “Just the usual. Owner of S.T.A.R. labs. Wheelchair. Caused the explosion last year.”

“The wheelchair is a ruse.”

Mick snorted. “Did the kid tell you that?”

“He’s got no reason to lie. He put his life, his reputation, on this man. He’s got no reason to be making this up.”

“To play at your heartstrings?”

Len glared at Mick. “First, he doesn’t think I have heartstrings. Second, he doesn’t know about what happened with our father.”

Lisa was quiet for a moment. “Lenny, why are you making that comparison?”

Len nodded his head back to the living room where the kid was asleep on the couch. “You know what’s under those bandages?” He glanced around. Neither Mick nor Lisa were willing to hazard a guess. “Scars. Scars from where he pulled against the cuffs. Harrison Wells is apparently a speedster, who had Cisco trapped for 2 months. He’s just escaped, he needs rest, not to be kidnapped again. That kid has just escaped from what Lisa and I went through. I’m letting him go. Now.”

Mick folded his arms. “How do you know what the kid is saying is true?”

Len sighed. “I’ve seen that look before. The panic attack, the scars on his wrists, the scaring…this kid’s been through hell. The same hell we went through.”

"Lenny, I wish we had another option..." Lisa was uncomfortable, but Mick picked up where she couldn't. 

"That's the hell you're about to go through again without 'im. You need 'is help. You can't let 'im go yet." 

Len hung his head. "I know...I just wish there was another way." 

 

Cisco hadn’t realized he was asleep until he jerked awake as Snart and Lisa walked back into the room. His eyes widened as Lisa walked quickly up to him then hugged him, curling around him on the couch. He blinked, trying to process what was happening. Then he noticed Snart scowling, and started panicking.

“She initiated!” He protested, trying to avoid Snart’s wrath.

Snart chuckled. “I can see that.”

Cisco tried to think of what to do, what to say, why his enemy’s sister was hugging him so tightly. “Um…”

Snart nodded. “I know. What are our plans with you? Well, as you can see, her plan is to hug you until you feel safe again.”

“Shut up Lenny, it’s a good plan!” Lisa muttered from behind Cisco’s shoulder.

Cisco was blanking out. She was trying to help him move past his kidnapping? Wasn’t she the one who had just kidnapped him again?

Snart stood there, observing, then walked out of the room. Cisco wasn’t sure what to do, so he just stayed still.

After about a minute Lisa pulled back from the hug, cupping his face in her hands. “You’re safe here. Okay? I know my brother’s scary and all, and you’re not allowed to leave, but no one will hurt you while you’re here. Okay?”

It clicked into place for Cisco. “He told you what happened.”

Lisa nodded. “Not everything, but enough.” She looked like she was about to hug him again, so Cisco cleared his throat, trying to think of something to say.

“So…what am I still doing here?”

Lisa sighed. “We need you to make more weapons, I know you don't want to, but there's a reason for it. Really.”

 

Cisco got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “I-I can’t. I won’t build weapons again. I won’t make something that’ll kill innocent people, not ever again!”

“Relax, kid.” Called Snart from the doorframe. He was back. Cisco wasn’t sure what he had left to go do. “I don’t need you to help me kill an innocent.” He pushed himself off from the doorway, coming over to sit in front of Cisco, who realized that the blanket was still draped around his shoulders.

“An innocent? You do expect me to help you kill someone?”

Snart nodded. “Our father.”

 

He couldn't get details on what they were doing. They wanted him to build tech, and they wouldn't tell him what his tech would be doing. Snart kept saying 'the less he knew the safer he was'. But that sounded ridiculous. Eventually they had him make some kind of gun for Lisa. Something that turned everything into gold. Like Midas touch in a gun. He knew he could do it, that wasn't the problem. The problem...well. There were multiple problems. The first was the this was probably going to be used to kill people. He was trying to work on a way to build it without killing people, by trying to make the weapon shoot a shiny breathable material that could be scraped off or dissolve easily enough, so the people inside wouldn't die. 

The second problem was making the first last much longer than it normal would have: he couldn't work. His hands started shaking not even five minutes into the project, and he couldn't stop remembering the device Thawne had been building. He shuddered, sucking in a deep breath as his hand started shaking so bad he dropped the screwdriver. Snart looked up quickly, frowning. "Are you alright?" 

Cisco nodded, breathing again and trying to focus. "I'm fine dude," he tried, voice hoarse, but he was reasonably certain he'd been convincing. At least dropped it, but he was glancing over at Cisco even more now. Great. That's just what he needed, more pressure. "I mean what do you expect from someone who can barely stand? I'm still a bit shaky. I'll be fine." 

He continued working, trying to get the composite correct. He needed this to be right. Nobody should be trapped in that kind of shell like that, without air, suffocating, dying piece by piece-

He tried to suck in a deep breath, to clear his head, but somewhere between his mouth and his lungs the breath caught, and he blinked. He tried again, blinking to clear the lights in his vision. Why was everything reflecting light like that? 

The shaking was getting bad, and he reached for the chair to sit down. He missed, and the last thing he heard before hitting the floor was the scraping of another chair as Len lunged for him. 

 

Cisco regained consciousness back in that living room, lying on the couch. He tried sit up, only to find his leg unwilling to move, wrapped in warm blankets to keep off the ache. He winced at the pain in his chest. His heart rate picked up when he saw Heatwave guarding the door. Lisa and Snart might have been on better terms with him, but Heatwave was still a loose cannon. And completely insane on top of it. 

Thankfully Lisa and Snart walked through the door only a few minutes later, carrying food. Thai too, which was good. He liked Thai. Thawne hadn't served it to him, so there were no mixed feelings there. They all dug in, and Lisa started up conversation. It drifted a lot, between sports teams and tv shows, and back into best animal types. But then the conversation began lulling as their food was long finished.

Then Cisco just had to ask. “Why do you want to kill your dad?”

Snart and Lisa exchanged a look. One that Cisco couldn’t interpret.

Snart opened his mouth, but Lisa cut him off. “Lenny, let me. Please.” Snart sighed, then nodded and stood up. Once he and Mick had left the room Lisa turned to Cisco. She took a deep breath, then rolled the collar of her shirt off of her right shoulder. There was a long, jagged scar there. “I didn’t get this scar being a criminal, I got it being a daughter.”

Cisco started to understand, but Lisa continued. “The first time my father came after me I was 7. The next time I was 8. That’s when I learned that a bottle hurts worse than a fist.” Lisa sat thinking for a moment, before continuing. “He used to say he was teaching us lessons. I must have been a slow learner, because the lessons never stopped.”

“Lisa,” began Cisco, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry.” He eventually landed on.

She nodded. “What he did to me isn’t even half of what he did to Lenny. Lenny looked out for me. He took most of the beatings. When our dad got put away, we thought that would be that. But we recently learned that he managed to escape from prison. And now he’s sending people after us. Lenny wants to end this fight once and for all. To finally be rid of the man. That’s why he needs your help. That’s why we need your help.”

Cisco nodded. “I help you kill him, and you’ll let me go?”

Lisa smiled a little. “If Lenny doesn’t, I’ll sneak you out myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while writing this I had an idea: They're like the 4 houses. I think that Cisco would be Hufflepuff, Lisa would be Slytherin, Len would be Ravenclaw, and Mick would be a very obnoxious Gryffindoor. Thoughts? Can you guess why I would say that? Do you have a better idea? 
> 
> If you're interested, I did create a mood board for this and posted it on my Tumblr account: shadows-and-flames42
> 
> Anyway! Thank you for taking the time to read this! I'm looking forward to posting more very soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody likes getting left behind,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!!! I'm back and I'm writing! And we're past the stuff I've edited, so now we're just in: Let me proof read this before I post it! Is it good? We're going with it!

It took three days to come up with a working plan to find Lewis Snart and kill him. Finally, they had everything they needed and a working plan, all Cisco had to do before they were ready was design something to cause a compressed and silent explosion, and remake the guns. Easy, except: “You’re not coming with us, kid.”

Cisco shook his head at Snart. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, Snart. I need to go with first of all: to make sure you don’t kill anyone else. And second of all: so that you know how to use it. There’s no way I’m trusting you to know how this works on your own.” Cisco said all of this with a lot more confidence than he felt.

Snart stood over Cisco, who was seated at the desk in the office. “This isn’t a field trip, it’s an assassination. I wouldn’t bring you on a heist except as a hostage, there’s no way I’m bringing you on this. You can’t handle yourself.”

Cisco stood up. Snart still towered above him, but not by as much. “I have powers. Sort of. And I’m not saying I’m going in with you. But I’ve put too much of my equipment into your hands already. I want to make sure my babies are used for what I’m designing them for this time.”

Lisa stepped in. “Lenny, why not? I can keep an eye on him if you want till we get into the building, then it won’t matter because everyone’ll be inside fighting one of us, and he’ll be safe in the car.”

Snart groaned. “Fine. But if you mess this up, kid, you’re going to pay.”

As it turned out Cisco wouldn’t be the one to mess it up. It was doomed from the beginning.

 

 

 The car rocked as Cisco kicked the door. A master's in engineering and this was what he was reduced to. Kicking the door. It would have been easier if Cold hadn’t handcuffed his hands behind his back. When Cisco had insisted upon tagging along, this was not what he had meant. Being left in the car with his hands cuffed behind his back, so he didn’t ‘get into trouble’. Cisco landed a particularly vicious kick on the door remembering Cold saying that. “When I get out of here, I will show you just how much trouble I can get into…”

He yelped as the door swung open on its own, and a face appeared on the other side of the door. He knew that face. Where did he-

Then unconsciousness hit him in the form of a fist. 

 

Cisco came too tied in a chair. He opened his eyes to find himself in some warehouse. He tried to speak, but found he couldn’t. His voice was muffled through something. His heart rate sped up as he realized that he was gagged. He breathed through his nose, trying not to panic. It still felt like he wasn’t getting enough air.

“Awake are you?” Came a voice from behind him. It sounded vaguely like Snart, but at the same time it was older. Colder, if that was possible. Cisco started shaking. It wasn’t a conscious reaction, but he needed to get the gag out, out now, he needed to breathe!

The voice laughed, and it sounded like whoever it was had moved closer, and more to Cisco’s right. Finally the gag was removed, and Cisco sucked in a deep breath. “Don’t like gags, eh?” The voice seemed to find it amusing. Cisco minutely shook his head as he continued breathing, head down as far as the bindings on the chair would let him go. _Who the hell would?_ Cisco found himself thinking.

A hand at his scalp yanked his head up and he came face to face with a wrinkled, hard face. Wait, he knew that face. That was Lewis Snart, the man they’d been trying to kill. That was Lewis, which means that they had failed. They’d failed and-

Suddenly everything Lisa had told Cisco about what their father had done to them came back. This was worse than getting abducted by Thawne. Thawne had been terrifying, but he’d been mainly predictable, in a psychotic way. Lewis Snart…he was a ticking time bomb. Anything could set him off.

 _Barry, where are you?!_ Cisco found himself thinking again. Lewis’s grip on his hair tightened and Cisco winced in pain. “So. What does my son need you for?”

“I-I make things.” He gasped out. He could really use Lewis easing up his grip sometime soon.

“That can’t be all. If you just made the gadgets he wouldn’t have brought you along. So what else is it?”

Cisco tried to shake his head, but Lewis’s grip was still painfully tight. “Nothing else, I swear! I tagged along!”

Lewis finally let go of Cisco’s hair. Cisco sucked in a few breaths now that his neck wasn’t twisted painfully back. “You honestly expect me to believe that?”

Cisco glared at him. “Believe what you want, it doesn’t change the truth pal.”

Lewis took a few steps away from Cisco, silent. Then he turned back. “I don’t really take well to lying, _pal_.” Lewis drew a handgun from his side and shot Cisco in the leg.

Cisco screamed. His left leg felt like it was on fire. He clenched his fists trying to cope with the pain, but it didn’t do him much good. He felt a few tears course down his face and he tried to cope with it. “You don’t look too good there,” commented Lewis. “You know, I’ve heard that something to bite down on can help.” He grabbed Cisco’s jaw and forced it open, stuffing the gag back in.

Cisco began shaking, and tiny tremors ran through him from the pain and the anxiety. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton, too thick to breathe through.

“Next time I expect the truth.” Then Lewis walked away. It was only a few minutes till Cisco was out cold again.

 

“We need the Flash’s help.”                                                                                       

“We’re not going to get more kids to help with something we can handle.” Len was adamant.

“Lenny, we can’t handle this!” Lisa was shaken up. They’d found the car abandoned, the passenger door on the left side having been ripped almost off its hinges from the outside after they returned from a completely failed attempt to kill Lewis. He’d known they were coming, and had been ready. “Cisco’s in trouble because of us! If Lewis finds out about any of his weaknesses, he’s sure to exploit them. Lenny,”

Len shook his head. “We’ll get that new kid: Hartley to track down Lewis, then we finish this on our own. We’ll call in a favor from one of the new meta-humans too. Maybe Rainbow Raider or Peek-A-Boo.”

Lisa nodded, but caught her brother's arm as he moved away. “If this doesn’t work, we call them in, alright? Anything goes wrong and we call the Flash.”

Len sighed. “I’m not sure he’s too keen to help us after what we did.”

Lisa shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s Cisco. We couldn’t predict our father, it’s our fault he’s in such a bad position.” Finally, Len agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Thank you all for sticking with this! It's gonna get dark here for a bit, but then we're gonna have some comfort. Just... hold on. It's a bumpy road. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Cisco can't catch a break, can he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...eek.

7 days, and they still had nothing. Felicity had come by to try and help track them, but there wasn’t much she could do. Snart was good at going off grid.

 It was midnight, and Barry was running through Central City trying to find something, anything, to help locate Cisco. Caitlin and Felicity both called through the speakers: “Barry, get back here!”

Barry was in the cortex seconds later. “What is it? Did you find something?”

Caitlin looked to Felicity, who took charge. “Snart’s contacted us. It’s an S.O.S. He says Cisco’s in danger.”

Barry felt his blood boil. “Where?”

He was off before Caitlin finished rattling off the address.

 

Cisco hung his head. Lewis had come back, and he seemed to take great delight in torturing Cisco. Cisco tried to grit his teeth, but it was hard around the gag that Lewis had only briefly removed. His hands were still twitching from the electricity that Lewis had pumped into him through the metal chair. His leg was looking terrible, and Cisco sorely hoped that it wouldn’t need amputated. His hand wasn’t doing that well either, from where Lewis had smashed it. That coupled with the new bruise on his face and bruises on his chest made for very painful breaths.

“I’ll let you take a break for a few minutes, shall I?” Lewis said, patting Cisco’s leg. Cisco screamed into the gag, his whole body a mass of pain. He tried to breath in through his nose, ignoring the smell of burned skin and the iron of his own blood. His throat was clenched painfully, so he tried to focus on his surroundings. He could make out a small window that he’d been observing the whole day. He had been abducted at night, and then it was daylight when he’d woken up, and it was night time again. He’d been captive for over 24 hours, if he could guess right. Well, a double captive, technically. Is that what it was called when you were kidnapped in the middle of another kidnapping?

There was a strange noise from somewhere outside the warehouse. _Oh, please be someone come to help. I’m not sure I even care who at the moment, but someone, please!_  There were heavy boots coming towards him, and Lewis came around a corner a few moments later. He was holding a knife.

“Stay still, and do what I tell you.” He ordered, cutting the restraints and hoisting Cisco to his feet, holding him upright by his collar. Cisco nearly collapsed as he put weight on his injured leg, and he tried to reach around and grab Lewis with his uninjured hand, but it was too much of a struggle. Lewis half dragged half marched Cisco towards the exit of the warehouse, keeping Cisco in front of him at all times. Cisco wanted to reach up and remove the gag, but as he reached for it Lewis grabbed his good hand and pinned it behind him. He was now thoroughly terrified.

They were nearing an open door, almost like that of a garage when Cisco saw Len and-was that Bivolo? Len had his gun up and charged but Lewis drew a gun and pointed it at Cisco, still holding him up though Cisco could barely stand on his injured leg. There was silence for a little while, then Lewis called across: “What’re you gonna do, son? I’ve got your little pet right here. You have your friend make me lose control like he did to my men, well, you’re pet’s insides will be all over the warehouse floor.”

Cisco was relieved to see Bivolo put back on his glasses. That was one threat he was sure Lewis would carry out. “What do you want, Lewis?” Called out Len.

“What, can’t a father check up on his kids?”

“Not when those kids put him in Iron Hights he can’t.”

They spared back a bit, each second the pain getting worse in Cisco’s leg, but something else was nagging in the back of his mind. Where were Lisa and Heatwave?

As if on cue he heard their weapons power up behind them. He felt Lewis turn his head, and was dragged along as Lewis turned to face them. “Well well well… looks like the disaster’s putting herself together a bit.”

“Let him go, Lewis. You’re outnumbered. You shoot him, you’re never making it out of this warehouse alive.”

“Is that any way to talk to your father?” Lisa’s look was terrifying. “It seems to me that this kid is my only insurance against you lot. So how about a trade? You let me out of here, I give you back your pet.”

Lisa looked over to Len, who nodded. “Deal.” Heatwave and Lisa stepped to the side to let Lewis pass, but kept their weapons trained on him. Lewis took his time walking out of the warehouse, but Cisco wished he would hurry up. He could barely stand, he didn’t have much energy left for moving and his chest, leg and hand were all on fire with pain.

Once Lewis was out of the warehouse he turned, keeping Cisco between the others and himself.

“Now give him back, Lewis.” Lisa called out.

Cisco almost knew it was coming before it did. There was a bang and a searing pain in his side as Lewis’s arm withdrew and Cisco collapsed.

 

The instant Len heard the gun he fired. Lewis dropped with ice shards through his heart. He ran forward and dropped down to where Cisco had fallen. The kid was in bad shape. It was clear he couldn’t use his leg, and it seemed that his hand was broken too. The kid was gagged, which was something Len addressed immediately. There was a bullet wound in his abdomen. Cisco was unconscious, but not dead. Not yet.

“Mick, get Bivolo back to the safe house.” Mick didn’t move. “Now!” He roared. Lisa turned and directed him away. “Lisa, message the Flash.” Len ordered as soon as Mick and Bivolo were gone.

“Are you-”

“Now, Lis!”

Len used his left hand to put pressure on the wound as Lisa pulled up the contact info on Len’s phone. Len’s right hand was supporting Cisco’s head, hoping against hope that the Flash would be fast enough to save the kid. A few seconds later the lightning stopped in front of Len.

“What did you do to him? Did you KILL a man? What the hell kind of game are you playing, Snart?” Barry was furious.

“Yes, I killed Lewis. For everything that he’s done to me, Lisa, and now Cisco, he deserved to die. Cisco’s been shot. He needs medical attention. NOW.” The flash nodded and lifted Cisco’s form out of Len’s arms, then was gone. All Len could do was hope that they were fast enough to save him.

 

Caitlin gasped as she saw Cisco’s form on the bed in the medical area. It was bloody and covered in dirt and sweat. “Barry! What happened?”

“Some man named Lewis. I didn’t get the details, but Cisco’s been shot. Twice, it looks like. Once in the abdomen, once in the leg. It also looks like his hand was broken.”

Caitlin nodded. “I need to perform surgery immediately.”

Barry nodded. “What can I do to help?”

“Grab me some pain killers and an IV. Felicity, I need you to remove the shirt so I can get at the wound.”

Felicity nodded, and when she’d done so they both gasped. Barry froze as he re-entered the room. Cisco’s chest was a mass of bruises and swelling.

 Caitlin directed her attention to the wound in his abdomen. She had to remove the bullet and stabilize him. As she worked she focused on the task at hand, and tried not to think about it being Cisco. Tried not to think that if she made one wrong move, it could be fatal, and she could lose one more friend. She tried not to think, and just act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness I can't believe I got that out! Okay, it's gonna get better after this! We're finally gonna have some actual comfort for a bit!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know how much I would need this chapter until a few months ago. Warning: panic attack

There were machines beeping somewhere near him. He tried to open his eyes, but found that he didn’t want to. He was resting on a bed, and it was really soft. Actually, he didn’t want to do anything except just lie there and sleep. Strange, shouldn’t he be getting up?

“Are you awake?” A voice next to him asked. He sighed, and figured he probably should open his eyes. When he did, he saw Caitlin. Wait. Was he in S.T.A.R. labs?

“Cait?” His voice sounded strange. Like he hadn’t used it in a while. He tried to sit up, but Caitlin kept him down.

“Shh, I’m here. You shouldn’t move. You were shot.”

Cisco nodded, still unsure of why that meant he couldn’t move. And how he got to S.T.A.R. labs. “How did I…”

“Get here? Barry brought you. Snart texted and said you were in trouble.”

Cisco nodded, then smiled. “I think Lisa likes me.”

Caitlin huffed out a laugh. “You think? It’s practically guaranteed.”

Cisco thought. “Why can’t I feel anything?”

Caitlin smiled. “You’re a bit high. We gave you some pain killers. We have plenty, since Barry can’t really use them.”

Cisco nodded. “Rainbow Raider was there. Why did I get saved by supervillians?”

Caitlin shrugged. “I still don’t know why they took you, so I can’t say.”

Cisco raised his good hand a bit shakily. “Needed me to help them…had to help them kill someone.” Cisco shuddered. “Met him. He shot me. He’s not nice.”

Caitlin took his hand. “Snart wanted you to kill someone?!”

Cisco nodded. “Make things to help. Lisa explained. He was a bastard. He-”Cisco started shivering, then shaking. This wasn’t good. “He tied me down. He shot me. Hit me. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t-I-I Caitlin, he’ll come back, he’ll come back after me, I can’t!”

Caitlin stood up, holding onto Cisco shoulders as he shook, eyes wide with fright. “Cisco, Cisco! He’s dead! He won’t be coming after you again! You’re safe!” Cisco shook his head, but Caitlin just ran a hand through his hair. “He can’t get to you, you’re safe. You’re safe, Cisco.” Eventually Cisco dropped back off to sleep, still plagued by fears of the dead man.

 

Lisa shook her head, then entered the building. In an instant the Flash was standing in front of her. “What do you want?” He asked, the vehemence in his voice evident despite the vibrations.

“I need to know that he’s alright.” She stated matter-of-factly.

“Why do you care?” Asked the Flash.

“Listen-it’s my fault that he got taken by our father. He wanted to come on the mission with me, Lenny and Mick, but Lenny didn’t want him to. I said that he’d be safe, I’m the one who misjudged the situation. I just need to know that he’s going to be alright.” It had been eating at her for the past two days what had happened, especially after last night when he’d been shot.

The Flash was silent for a few moments, then nodded. “His condition is stable.”

Lisa let out a breath of relief. “I know it’s too much to ask, but can I see him?”

The Flash looked like he didn’t want to agree, but finally he nodded and turned to walk away. Lisa followed him to the room she’d been in before, and saw the medical bay to the side. The lady doctor was sitting there, next to Cisco. She didn’t look happy to see Lisa, but she allowed her to approach. Lisa sat down on the bed next to Cisco, taking his good hand in hers. The kid looked calm.

“He woke up about half an hour ago, but only for a few minutes. It looks like he’ll make a full recovery.” Lisa nodded.

“I have questions for you, of course.” Lisa finally tore her gaze away from Cisco and looked up at Caitlin.

“What do you need to know?”

“Why did you ask him to build something to help you kill a man? You know that Cisco isn’t the type of person who can do something like that.”

Lisa nodded. “It was Lenny’s idea. He-the man who took Cisco is our father. Lewis.” Lisa could barely keep the vehemence out of her own voice. “He was sent to Iron Hights for child abuse and other crimes including bribery and tampering with evidence. He was”

“A dirty cop.” Interrupted the Flash. “Sorry, please continue.”

Lisa nodded. “He broke out of Iron Hights a few weeks ago. It was obvious he was coming after me and Lenny, so we decided we’d have to beat him to the punch. We decided to end things once and for all. That’s why we needed Cisco. We knew that we couldn’t just get your help in killing Lewis, and he’d break out of any prison he went to. We only wanted Cisco to design the things to help us get in to where we’d heard Lewis was hiding, and make our guns. We didn’t want him to come along with, but Cisco was adamant that he was present when his device was used so that we didn’t use it for something else.” The Flash nodded. “We didn’t realize that Lewis had sent out that information as a trap, to lure us to him. We realized it before the trap closed, and Lenny got us out of there. But…Lewis found Cisco, and figured that the best way to draw us out again was to take him.” Lisa was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never meant for this to happen to him. I didn’t want Cisco to get hurt.”

Lisa gasped as she felt a hand close around her own. She looked down to see Cisco smiling at her.

“Not your fault.” Cisco murmured, a little fuzzily. “You ‘kay?”

Lisa laughed tearily. “Me? You’re the one who’s injured!”

Cisco looked like he was thinking. “Had worse.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Really? How so?”

Cisco laughed. “’kay, haven’t had worse. Still, you’re safe, right?”

Lisa nodded. “Yeah, I’m safe.” She smiled at Cisco. It was good to know he was safe.

 

Where everyone stood with Snart was…undecided. Lisa would stop in occasionally and check up on Cisco, bringing him mochas from Jitters every now and then. Then, one day, Len visited Cisco.

Well, visited isn’t the best description. Cisco opened the door to his apartment to see Len sitting on his couch, feet on the table, lounging. Cisco immediately checked behind him to make sure he could make a run for it if need be. When he was sure he could, he pulled out his phone and made sure all it would take was a press of a button to call Barry.

“If you could stop letting all the cool air out that would be nice. It is July, you know.”

Cisco closed the door behind him as he entered his apartment, setting his things down on the table. “What are you doing here?” He asked.

“Came to check up on you.” Len hadn’t moved from his position on the couch.

“What, Lisa hasn’t been keeping you up to date?”

Len laughed. “Not what I meant.” This time Len stood up from the couch, turning to face Cisco. Cisco crossed his arms and stared right back at him.

It took a minute before Len spoke. “So you’re not recovered yet.”

Cisco raised his eyebrows. “What?! I’m fine! My hand’s healed, and I don’t even have a limp anymore. What makes you think I’m not recovered?”

Len walked towards Cisco and Cisco backed up till he hit the table and Len was standing in front of him. “You’re still scared of Lewis.”

Cisco caught his breath. “I’m fine, that isn’t bothering me anymore.” He lied.

Len smirked. “Lewis was the spawn of nightmares. There’s nothing wrong with still being scared.” Cisco shook his head, but his side was aching painfully with the memories. “You want to prove me wrong?”

Cisco gaped at him. “Do I want to-you are wrong!”

Len shrugged. “Then let me see your hand.” Cisco rolled his eyes, but held up his left hand. “Nice try. The other one.”

Cisco sighed, and passed the phone to his left hand and held up his right. Len took it in his hand and examined the back, where it had been struck. Cisco couldn’t hold back the shudder as he remembered Lewis slamming the end of his gun into the hand, and the pain that had lanced through his arm. Len gently pressed down on where the gun had hit. Cisco didn’t flinch.

“I’m fine. See?”

“What I see, Cisco, is that you haven’t let yourself feel anything about what happened to you. You’ve tried to ignore it. That’s not healthy for your mind. And you haven’t been eating either.”

Cisco wasn’t sure if he should be embarrassed that Len knew, or outraged that Len had gone through his things. He decided on outraged. “You went through my pantry? Don’t you have any sense of boundaries?!” Cisco yanked his hand out of Len’s grip and headed over to his living room to avoid Len’s gaze.

“I did my research to make sure you were alright. Clearly you aren’t.”

Cisco rounded on Len. “Why do you care?!”

“Because you’re my sister’s best friend!”

“So, what? That means you’ll break into my apartment and go through my things? Examine me? Find flaws with me? Try and diagnose me?” Cisco was furious, but Len just sighed.

“I do that because…no matter what Lisa says, it wasn’t just her fault.”

Cisco took a step back. What?

“I allowed you to come with us, and more than that I kidnapped you in the first place. I got you involved in something that dangerous when you had just escaped another danger yourself. I could have seen what was going on that day and decided not to kidnap you at all, but I ignored it. It’s my fault my father got a hold of you, it’s my responsibility that you recover from that.”

Cisco shook his head, moving past Len and heading towards the door, but Len grabbed his wrist, clearly about to say something else. Unfortunately, the moment Len touched him Cisco was lost to the vortex of blue and black.

He saw himself, but it was something that could never be. Lewis was there, torturing him. Cisco could feel everything the other him felt. He couldn’t breathe, and not just because of the towel covering his face. It was the water that Cisco could _feel_ clawing its way up his throat. The way he felt all the pain that the other Cisco had already gone through. Could feel his shoulders burning, one of his knees was broken, and his hands-no. His hand. As Cisco looked on, he could see that one of his hands was broken, and there was simply a bloody stub where his other hand had been.

Air flooded into Cisco’s system as he finally returned to reality. Leonard was there by his side as Cisco collapsed onto the ground in front of his couch. “Cisco, what did you see?”

Cisco shook his head, trying to suck in as much air as was humanly possible, but it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough air, and everything in his head told him to get out of there. Find somewhere safe, just get out of there now! But as he tried to stand his legs collapsed under him.

“Cisco, what can I do?” Asked Len as the panic attack set in full force. Cisco tried to speak, but he couldn’t get out a word as he gasped for breath. “Do you want me to call Barry?” Len asked, getting up to leave, but Cisco’s hand shot out and grabbed Len’s arm. “Alright, I’ll stay here.” Len thought for a moment, then decided to wrap Cisco into a hug, unsure if it would help or just make things worse. He’d seemed to respond well to touch earlier. Thankfully, Cisco immediately returned the hug, holding Len so tight that Len wasn’t sure that he could quite get enough breath, but he had some, so he was fine.

Len gently rubbed Cisco’s back as he heard Cisco starting to get more breath. Finally Cisco began to pull away, and Len let him, not taking his hand off of Cisco’s back though. “What happened?”

Cisco shook his head. “I saw-oh god what did I see? It-it was Lewis. It must have been another timeline, because he-I could tell he’d had me for a lot longer and” Cisco took a few breaths to get the words out. “I could feel it. Everything he’d done to me-to the other me. He-he was torturing him. Water boarding, and I could tell that he’d been burned, and his knee was broken, and his hand- Lewis had _cut off his hand_. I could feel where it was supposed to be. I could feel what it was like without having a hand. I could feel the water in my _lungs_ , it wasn’t- I couldn’t do anything!” Cisco was hyperventilating, and Len continued to rub his back.

“Shh, that didn’t happen. Lewis is dead. You’re safe. He can’t hurt you.”

Cisco shook his head. “But he still can. He still can because-because what if I see that again? See what he might have done to me? He’s still got access to my weakest point: my mind. I can’t get him out of it. You’re right, I haven’t been eating. Hell, I haven’t been sleeping. I can’t, I just can’t keep on living like this!” Len pulled him into another hug, muttering reassuringly into Cisco’s hair.

“I know. That’s why I’m here. It’s alright not to be fine. After what you’ve been through and seen, no one would be fine. You don’t have to pretend around me.”

Eventually Cisco calmed down. It took a while, but eventually Cisco was able to talk about it without dissolving and breaking down. They talked for an hour after that, and at the end Len ordered a pizza to split with Cisco.

“Seriously though, why?” asked Cisco on his 3rd slice.

“Because you need to remember to eat.”

“I remember!”

“Alright, you need to _choose_ to eat.” Cisco nodded. “Or else I’ll be over here every day.” Cisco nearly choked on the bite of pizza he’d taken.

“What?!”

“I need to make sure you’re taking care of yourself, kid. And if you can’t, then I’ll take over. I’m already going to be over here at least once every week, so it’s not too much trouble for me to increase that number.”

“Once a-what?! You can’t just do that!”

Len raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh? Why not?”

Cisco looked around as if his surroundings could help him explain it. “What am I going to tell my friends?”

“That you haven’t been the same since your abductions, and I’m helping you recover.”

“I have a life, you know!”

“Revolving around S.T.A.R. labs and nothing else. Lisa’s informed me.”

“I can’t-you can’t just-!” Cisco was at a loss for words.

“You feel a need to put up a front around other people: pretend that you’re alright, that it isn’t affecting you. But that’s just putting up a wall between you and everyone else. You need to be around someone you don’t feel the need to lie to. Especially after Harrison Wells.” Cisco tensed up. “I know how close you two were. He’s the one you confided in before. Then he betrayed that. You can be confident that I won’t betray your trust. I don’t lie to people about that, and you’ve already seen that.”

Cisco grumbled, but ate his pizza and didn’t argue any more.

That night Cisco slept better than he had in months. As he did every Wednesday from then on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that a lot of people hate to be touched while they're having a panic attack, but I'm basing this one off of mine. When I'm panicking, I need touch. It grounds me in reality. Only problem is the people who would touch me were the ones I wanted to get away from. I have it in my head that Cisco's mad at Len, but on a deep level trusts him, because he just saved his life, and has proven that he's a misguided sweetheart. That's just how I'm writing it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think that we were getting towards the end of the story? Think again!! :)

“So let me get this right,” Barry and Felicity had taken to chatting on the phone every week about everything that was happening in their respective cities. “There’s another earth? With another Flash?”

“Basically.”

“And this other Flash has lost his speed?”

“Yeah.”

“And he needs you to defeat this guy, Zoom, who keeps sending metas to fight you?”

“I guess?”

Felicity was quiet for a moment. “Do you ever look at our lives and think you read it in a comic book when you were a kid?”

“All the time!” Barry smiled, leaning against the door. “Sometimes I swear the names Cisco gives these guys came straight out of a comic book.”

“Speaking of Cisco, how’s he doing?”

Barry was quiet for a moment. “Better, I think? There were a few weeks over the summer where I got worried, but he seems to be doing alright now. I still worry, but…”

“You can let him out of your sight?”

“Yeah.”

“Barry, you’ve got to trust that Cisco is doing everything in his power to protect himself. And that you are too. You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened.”

“Can’t I? It was my fault! I didn’t trust that Cisco was loyal, I didn’t find him before Lewis, I’m the one who wasn’t fast enough to save him.”

“Bartholomew Allen, you did save him. He’s alive right now because of you!”

“I wasn’t fast enough to stop him from getting hurt.”

There was a rustle of static across the speakers. “Barry, it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have done anything more than what you did.”

“I know, it’s just…I feel like I’m failing him. Especially these last few days. Something’s seemed off about him ever since we learned about this other earth.”

 

Cisco groaned as he dropped the keys into the basket by the table. Shaking his head he made his way to the couch, plopping down. This week had been hell so far. More metas, another speedster, and even more stress and panic attacks. Briefly he glanced at the fridge, contemplating food, but decided against it. Len would probably be there soon with pizza. Besides, what’s a few more hours without food? He hadn’t really bothered with it in…how long?

He ducked his head back onto his couch, not bothering to count it. He sighed, standing up wearily to grab some water, when the room started spinning. _Not another panic attack,_ he thought before the world crashed down around him.

 

Leonard Snart was used to breaking into people’s houses at night. He hadn’t been used to breaking into Cisco’s apartment over the last few weeks. Usually the kid left it unlocked if he didn’t open the door for him. Thankfully Cisco hadn’t changed his locks even since Snart broke in the first time a few months back, and it only took him one hand to pick the lock as his other hand balanced the pizzas.

“Kid? You haven’t been kidnapped again have you?” He called out as the door swung open. Silence met him. “Kid?” He asked, setting the pizzas down on the table and drawing his weapon. That’s when he noticed the buzzing of an alarm.

“Kid!”

Cisco was laying prone on the floor, his phone buzzing next to him, the alarm reading 15 minutes earlier. Len turned him fully onto his back, checking his head to make sure he hadn’t hit it. Then he lifted Cisco and carried him to the couch, checking Cisco’s pulse. It was weak, but constant.

“Come on kid, wake up…”

Cisco’s groaned gently, eyes wincing at the light. “Snart? What’s goin’ on?” He slurred.

Snart sat back, taking a deep breath. “You passed out kid. I found you on the floor. What happened?”

Cisco stared at him. “I didn’t have a panic attack?”

Snart groaned. “Well you can hold a conversation, so I don’t think a panic attack made you pass out.” Cisco shrugged. “Alright, let’s go through the list. You’ve been remembering to eat recently, so that can’t be it.” The unusual silence that greeted his statement left Snart significantly more nervous than when he found Cisco on the floor unconscious. “You have been remembering to eat, right?” Cisco’s eyes bored into the ceiling above him instead of focusing on Snart. “Francisco Ramon!”

“I’m sorry, okay? I can’t eat most days. I guess it got worse than I thought.”

“Do you know what happens if you don’t eat? What happens if you don’t-”

“You go numb to it, yeah.” Cisco turned to glare at Len. “And slowly it eats away at you until the hunger comes back and it doesn’t ever go away. Well it does that if I eat or don’t, so it doesn’t matter to me. Might as well not force myself to eat if it’s going to hurt either way.”

Snart almost wished Cisco was still avoiding his gaze, with the amount of pain he could see. “Kid…”

“I forget to eat, or I choose not to, with the stress of a new meta, and this new speedster, and everything going on, and the vibes and the memories and secrets…and then after a little while the pain goes away. It goes away, and as long as I don’t think about food it stays away for a bit. And maybe the pain comes back if I try to eat. Maybe the pain’s so bad I don’t want to eat because I know it’ll hurt. Maybe I’m not fixed, maybe I never will be. But I’m something. And as long as I can help Barry and Caitlin and Joe I will.”

“Cisco, you passed out. For over 15 minutes. What if I hadn’t been here? What if you’d fallen a little to the left and hit your head on the table, and bled to death on the floor? You can’t help them if you’re dead!”

“I can’t help anyone if I’m a liability to them!”

“This is what it’s about then?” Cisco resumed avoiding Snart’s eyes. “You think what happened makes you a liability to the team? That you’re too broken to help? You’re punishing yourself for it?”

“I don’t know! All I know is that I look at food…and I want to throw up. I think about eating and I want to stop existing.”

“Cisco…”

“I’d never end it like that, okay? I’m not saying I would actually do anything, just that it’s what I want sometimes. Sometimes I wish you dad could have finished the job. Then you wouldn’t be stuck taking care of someone like me every week.”

Cisco closed his eyes as Snart wrapped him in a tight hug. “You’re not a burden. I’m so sorry for everything that happened to you. Especially what I did. But you’re not a burden to anyone. We’re all glad to help you recover. And you’re going to recover.”

Cisco kept his eyes closed, holding on to an anchor through the haze of his mind.

 

This new Wells. He was… different. He had the same disregard as Eobard had had once he had dropped the guise of being Wells, but without the smug attitude. No, strike that, he still thought he was right about everything. “What’s your sample size, Crisco?” His voice smug with condescension.

Then later: “You wouldn’t happen to have a Big Belly Burger in this universe, would you?”

“This can’t be happening.” Cisco finally muttered.

Then things got a lot worse. “What did he do to you?” Wells asked him later.

Cisco had had enough. “He shoved his hand through my chest and crushed my heart. Then when that timeline got erased, he abducted me, and put me through torture.”

Harry laughed. Actually laughed. “Alright, that would do it. Barry time traveled?”

“Twice.” Cisco muttered.

Then as Cisco was leaving, Harry revealed that he knew about Cisco’s powers. Cisco walked out of there and kept walking.

It got even worse when he tried to vibe Harry. Harry’d gotten aggressive and in Cisco’s face and Cisco had brought his hands in front of his chest to remind himself that Harry couldn’t actually hurt him. That he could protect himself from any attack. Apparently Harry had noticed because he backed off. Still, Cisco was incredibly wary.

Then Cisco actually managed to vibe off of Harry. He saw a girl, in a cage. He saw Zoom, and Zoom mentioned Harrison, and the girl’s loyalty to him. Then the vibe was gone. Cisco had to leave after that. But he was still curious. Curious enough to ask: “Who’s Jesse?” There was a flash of alarm on Harry’s face, then he stood in front of Cisco.

“Jesse’s my daughter, Zoom has her, you-you did vibe me?” The pain, the fear, and the hope in Harry’s voice reminded Cisco that this wasn’t Thawne. This would probably never be Thawne. Cisco nodded. “What did you see?”

“I saw your daughter. Zoom has her.” He couldn’t say what was happening to her. Luckily, that wasn’t what Harry wanted to know.

“But she’s alive?” Cisco nodded. “Thank you.” And Cisco realized: that was probably the first time anyone with that man’s face had ever thanked him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're about halfway through right now! It all gets crazy from here!!! Thank you all for your amazing comments! Yay!!! They really make my day :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we're almost to the final arc! It's a big one though, so be prepared! :)

His girlfriend being a reincarnated priestess with wings who had a soulmate may have been shocking, but Cisco got back from Starling City to discover something truly surprising. Harry’d been shot. A part of him wanted to lord it over the dude, but then he’d been put in charge of keeping an eye on Harry. That was tedious. At least Harry was able to walk about mostly on his own now, but Caitlin insisted that if he was going more than 20 paces from his bed he needed someone with him.

And Harry wanted to go to Big Belly Burger. It was late at night, and Barry and Caitlin had already left to go to home, and Cisco would do so as soon as Harry had gone to bed. Then Harry said he wanted to go get some food. Grudgingly Cisco agreed, and they got in the elevator to go down. Harry winced, clutching near his heart where the bullet had entered. Cisco couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him.

“Try getting shot, then laugh at me.” Muttered Harry.

“Yeah, been there, done that. Not interested in doing it again.”

Harry looked up at him. “I thought other me had psychologically tortured you?”

“Oh, no that one wasn’t him. A bullet would be too nice for someone like him. That was just kidnapping number one of the spring. I’m talking about kidnapping number three.”

Harry stared. What the hell, it was late at night, Cisco was tired, he might as well tell. “Yeah. Kidnapping one had mostly psychological torture, kidnapping two was just… _weird_ , and kidnapping three’s the one with actual torture.” Cisco said all of this with a laughing tone to his voice, but his stomach was clenching uncomfortably at the memories. This was why he had stopped eating in June and July.

Harry was about to say something when the elevator jarred to a sudden stop, sending Cisco and Harry tumbling to the floor. Then the lights went out.

“Harry?” Cisco called out, unsure of what to do other than stay still so he didn’t accidentally hit the man.

There was a groan followed by a “here.” Cisco reached his hand out towards the voice, but as his hand brushed up against Harry’s arm he saw lights flickering on. It took him a moment to realize that the lights weren’t the elevator, but his vibes.

He saw Jesse, crying, and wondering where her father was. Then the vibe ended.

“Ramon?” Harry asked. Cisco shook his head to clear it.

“Here, sorry, just…just a vibe.”

There was silence for a bit, then Harry asked: “Did you see Jesse?”

“Yeah.” With the darkness, it was almost impossible to tell anything except their voices, so Harry picked up a lot faster that something was up.

“What is it? She’s still alive, right?”

Cisco nodded, then remembered that Harry couldn’t see him. “She’s alive, she’s just… losing hope. I know that stage.”

“Isn’t there something we can do? To let her know that we’re coming?”

Cisco heard the desperation in his voice. “I don’t know of any, sorry. So far the vibes seem pretty… contained. They only go one way.” He heard the rustle of air as Harry sighed.

Cisco reached inside his pockets, but realized that he’d left his phone on his worktable. “Hey, Harry? Did you bring a phone?”

There was silence for a few moments. “Ramon, if I had, don’t you think I would have used it by now?”

Cisco growled.

There was silence for a few minutes, before Harry spoke up again. “Do you think you could climb up through the roof?”

“Really? What about me looks like the kind of guy who could do a full pull up?”

“Ramon,”

“Try and remember, okay?”

There were another few minutes of silence. Then: “When do you think Allen and Snow will find us?”

“I don’t know, when they realize I didn’t make it home perhaps? Probably when Caitlin goes to use the elevator tomorrow morning.”

Harry chuckled. “That’d be quite the Thursday morning surprise.”

Cisco chuckled too, then he stopped. “Wait, is today Wednesday?”

“All day, why?”

Cisco swore. “This isn’t good, this really isn’t good. I’m supposed to be home by 10, or he’ll start panicking, Len’ll panic and come looking and I’m stuck here and I can’t do anything andhe’snevergoingtoletmeoutofhissightagain-”

He was cut off by a hand over his mouth. “Ramon, calm-”Shock waves erupted from Cisco’s hands and the hand was gone, but the elevator dropped a few feet, the lights flickering for a moment to revel the shock and surprise on both of their faces before the lights went out again.

Cisco took a few breaths, and he could hear Harry groaning. “What…what was that?”

“Don’t cover my mouth. Seriously, with anything. Just-just don’t.”

“Alright, I won’t. But what did you do?”

Cisco realized that he’d hit Harry with his sonic blasts. “Oh, shoot! Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I panicked, and it’s one…strange, part of my powers. I can apparently shoot sonic blasts? I have even less control over them than the vibes though! Seriously they only just started appearing a few weeks ago!”

“I’m fine, it glanced my arm, that’s all. Anything I should know about your kidnappings though? As I’m pretty sure what you just described counts as PTSD.”

Cisco thought. “Don’t gag me, or anything to stop me talking. That’s just…really bad.”

“You were gagged during one of your kidnappings?”

“Two. The one with Thawne, and then the last one, which was mostly ‘cause the guy figured out I was scared of it.”

“Anything else?”

Cisco thought about it. About what might set him off. “Well, torture isn’t exactly good, but I’m guessing you already knew that.”

It was silent for a moment. “You don’t actually know what sets you off?”

“Nope. I haven’t had a lot of panic attacks. Just a few during the kidnappings, and maybe two since.”

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what nearly set you off a few minutes ago?”

Cisco took a breath, then let it out. “Someone’s been helping me get through the worst of it all. He visits on Wednesdays, and gets worried when I don’t show up by 10.”

“That’s not very nice. What if you’re out having a late dinner with a friend?”

Cisco laughed. “If I were I think he’d be thrilled.”

Harry took a moment to process that. “You forget to eat?”

“uhuh. A lot.”

“So, what? When he figures out where we are he’s going to come looking here?”

“Probably.”

They sat for another few minutes.

“You forget, to eat?”

“I just answered that question, like, five minutes ago!”

Harry thought for a bit. “Tell me about the kidnappings.”

Cisco groaned. “ _Why_ do you want to know?”

“Curiosity.”

“Well, go be curious somewhere else.”

“Really?”

“Okay, talk about something else!”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, sports!”

“I never really got into sports.”

Cisco sat in silence for a little while. “Yeah, me neither.”

“I got into psychology though.”

“Oh, really? You’re not gonna drop this? Fine! What do you want to know? That the first time I got kidnapped by the man I had once thought of as a father, who practically _strangled_ me, and kept me chained and gagged like an animal, exploiting my deepest fears? Or that I was barely out of there for 36 hours before I was abducted by Captain Cold, only his sister went all ‘protective mother goose’ and tried to cuddle me into recovery? Or the fact that I was still a _prisoner_ when their _father_ abducted me and _tortured_ me because he thought I was lying?! About how he _shot me_ in order to try and escape?! You want to talk about that?” Cisco was angry. He was, furious. To put it simply. He realized that he was crying, and quickly shut up.

“Ramon…” There was real regret in Harry’s voice.

“Save it. I’ve had everyone else’s pity, I don’t need yours too.”

“Here’s the thing. In my world, pity isn’t something degrading. It’s a simpler word for compassion. What you went through, that’s rough. Most of those things, I can’t say I understand. But being caged like an animal…I can relate to that.”

Cisco snorted. “Really? How so?”

Harry was silent for a few minutes. “I was a P.O.W. in the War of the Americas.”

Cisco shuddered. “That’s rough, dude.” There was silence for a few seconds, then Cisco asked: “You want to talk about it?”

Harry sighed. “I was a kid. Younger than you, if you can imagine that. The wars had just flared up again, and I wasn’t exactly new to the fields. I’d been fighting for a few months at that point. There was…an ambush. I survived, but I took a bullet to the leg. I passed out. When I came to, I was being shipped off to some P.O.W. camp. That should have been it, but the ship got overtaken by pirates. Yes, I said pirates. We still have them, even if they aren’t the type you see in your movies. Anyway, I went from P.O.W. to hostage on a pirate ship, to slave to some Incan ruler in Peru. By the time I escaped from him, the war was already over.”

Cisco sighed. “Okay, that’s rough too. How long were you there for?”

“A little over two years.” Cisco whistled, and just like that the lights came back on.

“I swear, that wasn’t me!”

The elevator started moving, and Cisco helped Harry stand up. As they reached the lowest floor and the doors slid open, they were greeted with the sight of a very confused Leonard Snart.

Harry blinked. As did Len.

“Please tell me you reset the elevator?” Asked Cisco. Len just nodded. “You still hungry or should we head back upstairs?” Asked Cisco. Harry seemed to snap out of his mental freeze. “I’ll head back upstairs. Though would you mind sticking around for a few minutes to make sure I don’t get stuck again?”

“Sure thing.” Said Cisco as he stepped off the elevator.

As the doors closed, he turned to Len. “He’s not, so stop worrying. He’s from another earth.”

Len nodded. “And what exactly were you doing stuck in an elevator with him?”

“He got shot while Barry and I were in Starling, so I’m helping him out. Caitlin’s orders.”

“The doppelganger of the man that killed you?”

“The doppelganger of the man who was killed by the man who killed me in order to gain our trust. Okay, it sounds convoluted even when I say it.”

“Glad we can agree. How long were you stuck in there?”

“What time is it?”

“11:30.”

“Yikes! 2 hours.”

“Then let’s go get some food and talk about how you’re doing. Before you get stuck in another elevator.”

 

Cisco had thought things might be changing with Harry, but a few days later he was back to his closed off jerk self. It was strange to see him like that again. Cisco chalked it up to it being Christmas without his daughter. But things kept happening. He didn’t want Cisco to vibe about his daughter again, which sort of made sense, and he looked like he wasn’t sleeping enough. None of that really mattered once Reverse Flash came back though.

Cisco shot out of bed, gasping. He’d seen Reverse Flash standing on a corner, pulling up Gideon out of his hand. Cisco knew that street corner though. He grabbed his shoes and his phone and left to check it out. As he neared where he had seen Reverse Flash, he found himself wondering just what he was doing. It wasn’t as if the Reverse Flash would have left clues as to where he was going.

Cisco got out of his car and looked around. The street was relatively quiet. Cisco looked around for a few minutes trying to find something that Reverse Flash might have left, but there wasn’t anything. Cisco was about to call Barry to tell him to be on the lookout, when there was a crackle of electricity, and suddenly the Reverse Flash seemed to…emerge, from a wormhole. The same way Cisco had seen in his vibe.

“Gideon,” he asked, after pulling down his mask and revealing himself to be Thawne, not Wells. “Where the hell am I?”

Then he noticed Cisco, standing there, gaping. Cisco immediately went for his emergency line to Barry, but before he could hit the button he blacked out.

 

Thawne picked up the crude phone in the child’s hands. He’d been about to call for help from the Flash. Interesting. Also interesting that this child knew the Flash well enough to have an alert on his phone. Thawne smirked. Maybe this child wasn’t just some random person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he could use that. Thawne bound the kid and tossed him in the trunk of the nearby car, then sped about 10 miles north and hit the button, dropping the phone and speeding back to drive off in the car. This would be…fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will find a plot point that isn't Cisco getting kidnapped. I will find a plot point that isn't Cisco getting kidnapped.  
> .....It just doesn't happen enough in the show, okay? He's crazy powerful, and clearly had a messed up bond with Thawne, I can't believe more people don't go after him more often!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thawne gets some answers, and Cisco explores his powers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know it's a little choppy, but I actually cut a scene earlier because I felt it didn't really fit. The scene is building up to a side story to this one that I haven't finished, but if you guys are curious I can write it.

Barry opened his eyes to see his phone beeping. Loudly. He realized with a jolt that it was Cisco’s panic button, and he flashed into his suit and followed the phone to the address where he found: nothing. There was no one nearby, and no sign of a fight or a struggle or anything. In fact, the strangest thing would be what Cisco was doing out here at… 3:13 in the morning? Then Barry saw Cisco’s phone lying on in the grass. Cisco never left his phone, especially after getting stuck in that elevator for 2 hours. Something had happened. Something had happened to Cisco, and it had happened so fast that Barry wasn’t able to get to him save him before any evidence of the attack was gone. With Cisco.

“No, no no no no no! This can’t be happening again!”

Barry’s first thought was Zoom. A speedster might have been able to do that. But here’s the problem. If it was Zoom, how had Cisco been able to call Barry at all? Barry shook his head. He needed to get help with this.

In an instant he was at S.T.A.R. labs, unsurprised to see that Harry was still up. “Barry? What’s going on?”

Barry shook his head, heading to the monitors and setting down Cisco’s phone to pull up the GPS log on where Cisco, or at least his phone, had been. Everything made sense, except Cisco was about 10 miles away from where his phone was found less than a minute before the alert went off. Then suddenly, Cisco’s phone was where Barry had found it, and the panic button was going off. “Damn it!” Barry swore.

“What’s wrong?”

“Cisco. He’s been taken, at least that’s what I can assume. His phone sent me an alert, but when I got there he was gone, and there was no sign of a fight. The GPS says his phone moved 10 miles in a matter of seconds, _then_ the alert was sent off.”

“Someone set it off to lure you there? Do you think it was Zoom?”

Barry shrugged. “This doesn’t seem like Zoom’s kind of thing. There must be another speedster. One who’s taken Cisco.”

“What’re you going to do?” Asked Harry.

“Try and find him.” Then Barry was gone.

Harry sighed, and sat down at the desk to run through a list of plausible areas to look. Barry might think running around blind was a good enough plan, but Harry disagreed. He had his own ways of tracking metas. Especially with what he knew of Cisco’s doppelganger.

 

 Cisco awoke to find his hands tied behind him and his feet bound. He tried to sit up, but hit his head. So…he was in a trunk. If the smell was anything to go by, he was in his own trunk. He sighed, then tried to kick out the taillight of his trunk. Unfortunately, it seemed that Thawne had been listening.

The trunk opened, and Cisco saw Eobard standing there in a button down shirt and black jacket. He was smirking. He grabbed Cisco by his arm and dragged him out of the trunk. Cisco could tell by the skyline that they were several miles away from Central City. They were outside, next to a river.

 _Perfect place to dispose of a body…_ Cisco found himself thinking. Thawne shoved Cisco to his knees, and Cisco stared up at him with all the hatred he could muster. Finally, Thawne spoke. “So…Cisco. That is your name, isn’t it? That’s what it said on the phone. How do you know the Flash?” It was obvious Thawne was expecting Cisco to respond, but he just glared. “You know, it’s not polite to ignore someone when they’ve asked you a question.”

In an instant Thawne’s hand was vibrating through his arm, and Cisco screamed as he felt it shatter. He wanted to collapse onto the ground but Thawne held him upright by his hair. _Note to self: get a haircut._ “So, want to try this again? Do you know the Flash through work?” Cisco nodded. “Use your words, child.”

Cisco ground his teeth. “ _Yes.”_

“Interesting. So where do you work?”

Cisco thought about not answering, but he wasn’t exactly a masochist. “S.T.A.R. labs.”

Thawne nodded, circling Cisco. “And you and the Flash, you know each other well, don’t you.”

Cisco snorted. “You could say that.”

“Well, I just confirmed this morning that this is the time that the Flash comes from. So here’s my question: do you know who he is?”

Cisco stared up at him. It couldn’t be, could it? “You seriously don’t know?”

Thawne stopped pacing. “We know each other, don’t we? We…have a history?”

Cisco growled. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Thawne crossed his arms. “You being there when I emerged from the time stream, that wasn’t an accident, was it? You knew I would be there? How?”

Cisco looked down. Oh well. “I have powers. I see things, they don’t make sense.”

Thawne nodded, then started laughing. “Well, you’ll have to excuse me, but I have a timeline to get back to.” Thawne stepped forward, lifting Cisco over his shoulder. Cisco thrashed against him to the best of his ability, but it didn’t do him much good. He was dumped unceremoniously back into the trunk, then Thawne pulled out a strip of cloth. Cisco shook his head, already feeling the fear coursing through him.

“No, no there’s no need, I’ll stay quiet, I promise! You don’t have to do that!”

Thawne froze, intrigued. “You’re scared of being gagged?” Cisco shuddered, but nodded. Thawne’s smile increased, and Cisco felt a tear running down his face. He knew what was coming. The gag was over his mouth in a moment, and Thawne reached for the trunk lid. “Good to know. I’m sure that’ll be useful when I come back.” Then the lid slammed shut and Thawne was gone.

Cisco breathed through his nose, trying not to panic. It was just over his mouth, he could still breathe. He was fine. He would make it through this. He wasn’t an animal, he was just being treated like one. He started shaking, then he felt his hands started vibrating. No, the car was shaking. He hands were emitting the sonic blasts again. Cisco tried to fuel all of his fear and panic into the blasts, turning on his side so that they were directed towards the trunk lid. He winced as this put strain on his already damaged arm, but he powered through. It would hurt a lot worse if he didn’t get out of here. Sooner or later, someone had to find him…right?

 

“Barry, get back here.” Harry called through his speakers. In an instant Barry was back.

“Have you found anything?” Barry asked, desperately. 

“I think so. This city isn’t built over a fault line, is it?” Barry shook his head. “Well there’s unusual seismic activity on the east bank of the river. I think that might be Cisco.”

Barry looked at Harry strangely. “Why would seismic activity be Cisco?”

“Because that’s his powers. In the elevator he started freaking out and his hands started pulsing these, sonic blasts. It’s a safe bet that that’s what’s happening now.”

“Alright, I’ll check it out.” Barry found the bank, and Cisco’s car was parked there. He ran forward, opening the trunk. Cisco was there, bound, with a clearly broken arm, but very much alive. Barry had to duck a blast from Cisco’s hands and put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder. “Cisco! It’s me!”

Cisco was shaking, and Barry could see why. He quickly removed the gag, helping Cisco sit up. “Cisco, calm down. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Who did this?”

Cisco shook his head. “Barry! Thank god! It’s Thawne, he’s back! I had a vibe last night about him coming back, and he showed up before I could call you.”

Barry was frozen. “Thawne’s back? How is that possible? Eddie erased him from existence!”

The speakers flared to life as Harrison spoke over them to Barry. “Barry, if you have Cisco then get back here. I have a theory about what might have happened.”

 

Caitlin set Cisco’s arm in as cast as Harry explained what was happening. All Cisco knew was that he could really use some coffee. And a few painkillers. Why was it that every villain seemed to love exploiting his fear of gags?

 

Barry had finished talking to Thawne, and was about to leave when he thought of something. Something Thawne had said before he died. Something Barry wanted answers about. He’d brushed it off at the time, but he didn’t want to forget again.

“Oh, one more thing.”

Thawne looked up. “Yes?”

Barry turned around to face Thawne. “Last time you were here you mentioned Vibes’ origin story. What exactly happened? What do the history books say?” Barry couldn’t help the feeling that there was something going on. Thawne’s words had implied that Cisco would be missing for months, not a week. Something had to be up. It was possible though…

“Vibe? He had an interesting origin. They say he was abducted by Captain Cold for his powers, but then a rumor started in the underworld about a powered person strong enough to take down a speedster, and he became a target for several mob organizations, including one that Cold’s own father was the head of. They say he went through torture for over 4 months at the hands of various villains all seeking to harness his powers for themselves. Eventually he fell into the hands of Cold’s father, who in trying to break the meta cut off his hand. After that he was saved by the Flash, but he was never really the same. He would later come to take down Zoom, a speedster who had corrupted his own powers. That’s what the books say, at least.”

Barry felt his blood run cold. “That’s all I needed.” Then Barry left.

 

“Yo, Barry? What’s up man?” Called Cisco from across the room. Barry sped over to him and pulled him into a sharp hug. “Um…thanks? Seriously though, what brought this on?”

Barry pulled away shaking his head. “You don’t want to know. Really.”

Cisco thought for a moment. “Does this have anything to do with an alternate timeline?”

Barry nodded. “Believe me, whatever time Thawne is from is something you don’t want to know about-”

“I already do.” Interrupted Cisco. His eyes were downcast as he said this.

“…Cisco?” Asked Caitlin. “Are you alright?”

Cisco took a deep breath. “I vibed what happened in the timeline that Thawne’s originally from. I saw what happened in it.”

Barry looked conflicted. “Then you saw…”

“Other me losing his hand? Yeah. Yeah, I saw that.”

Caitlin wrapped Cisco into a hug. “Cisco, why didn’t you say anything?”

Cisco shrugged. “There were other things to worry about.”

This was when Harry just had to speak up. “So you haven’t told them?”

Barry glanced between Cisco and Harry. “Told us what?”

Cisco growled. “Alright, so Leonard Snart’s been breaking into my apartment every week to check on me. I think he feels guilty or something.”

The look on Barry’s face was comical. “He-what?! Why didn’t you tell us?”

Cisco shrugged. “It’s not like he’s trying to kidnap me again, and besides, I think talking with him’s actually been helping. I-it doesn’t make much sense honestly.”

“Actually it does.” Harry injected again.

“How so?”

“He’s already seen you at your weakest. He saw what you went through. And, to begin with at any rate, you didn’t care what he thought of you. It’s easier to talk to people about things you’re afraid of if you’re not scared of them, and don’t feel like you have to be someone you aren’t around them. Everyone here already had an idea of who you were. You didn’t want to worry them, so you didn’t talk about what was going on. With Snart, you couldn’t care less if he worried, so you let yourself stop pretending.” He smirked a little at Cisco. “Told you I knew a thing or two about psychology.”

Cisco nodded almost suspiciously. “Yeah, you know a thing or two about a lot of things.”

Caitlin sighed. “Just promise me that you’ll let us know what’s going on with you, alright?”

Cisco agreed, then when Caitlin and Barry weren’t looking he glared at Harry, as if daring him to say anything else.

 

Harry was sitting at a desk not too far from where Cisco was recovering from the time-seizure. Cisco had thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but the more he observed Harry, the more he noticed things being off. More so than the past few months had been. There was something…missing, from Harry’s eyes. A kind of snark that Cisco had been playing off of for as long as Harry had been on Earth-1.

“What’s up?” Cisco asked.

Harry looked up, as if brought out of some trance. “What do you mean?”

Cisco rolled his eyes. “You. You’ve been acting differently ever since Thawne arrived.” Harry remained quiet. “Come on, don’t be all ‘silent and brooding’ now!”

Harry sucked in a breath. “I never learned his name on my earth.”

Cisco sat up. “You mean…you know him?”

Harry nodded. “I was a slave of his for 2 years.”

Cisco’s eyes widened. “ _He’s_ the one you escaped from?” Harry simply nodded again. “Harry…I’m sorry.”

Harry snorted. “It’s not your fault. It seems he destroys my life no matter what earth I’m on.”

Cisco finally leaned back against his pillow. “If you ever want to talk about it…we’ve kind of both been in that position.”

Cisco let himself drift back off to sleep, but thought he heard Harry mutter a “Thanks,” before he fell asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that the end of referencing that Harry has OBVIOUSLY been in a war? NOPE! :) This'll come back to haunt them :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> E-2 isn't friendly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to say this now: ALL I KNOW ABOUT THE INCAN EMPIRE COMES FROM A BOOK AND THE INTERNET!!   
> I'm trying to do my best to represent how I believe the culture would have evolved if it had survived, but I honestly have no idea. I hope nobody objects to my interpretation, and if there's anything you think I can do better, please let me know.

Harry was on edge from the moment they set foot in his laboratory on earth-2. The reason was fairly obvious. That earth’s Eobard Thawne, the man to whom he’d been a slave during the war of the Americas, was visiting Central City for some reason. Due to the ‘international culture treaty’, nothing could be done to him for what he had done to Harry. Cisco found the whole prospect revolting.

He followed that earth’s Iris to the warehouse, needing to see some version of Ronnie one last time. He hadn’t expected to meet his own doppelganger. When Zoom shredded the heart of his doppel, Cisco shuddered, reaching up to clench his own shirt above where he remembered Thawne killing him in that other timeline. When Zoom took Barry, Cisco figured that’d be it. He stood up shakily, watching that earth’s Caitlin run away and noticing Iris checking on her partner. Zoom had been gone for almost a full minute, and Cisco started to plan for how to get Barry back.

Suddenly the telltale lightning was surrounding the room again and Cisco felt his arm being pulled roughly, then he was moving. A scream left his mouth to only get lost the maelstrom of the speed force rushing past, and when they finally stopped moving Cisco dropped to his knees shaking, as best he could with Zoom still holding his arm in a vice-like grip.

“ _Your slave’s friend, as promised.”_

Cisco looked up to see the face he had hoped was gone staring down at him, adorned in Mayan war mantle. So this was the version of Thawne who had kept Harry a prisoner for 2 years. What did he want from Cisco though?

Cisco struggled to rise to his feet, but was roughly shoved down by Zoom, and held there. “ _We are in agreement, then?”_

Thawne nodded. “The artifacts are in the safe, you already know the combination.” Zoom was waved off and he disappeared in a flurry of lightning. Thawne stood up and Cisco tried to rise to his feet, but a hand on his chin stopped him. Thawne lifted his chin, searching Cisco’s eyes. “So you are the friend of my old slave. Perhaps you’ll do better than him.” Cisco wanted to hit him. He wanted to scream, to fight, to lash out, to insult, to do _something_ to this man. He wouldn’t end up a slave, he _wouldn’t._ He had to escape and save Barry! But the weeks of sensory memory from his imprisonment and later capture kept him silent, eyes wide as his hands shook, trying to dislodge the fear that clamped around his gut, making him want to throw up. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way out. Someone would save him. He would be alright. Someone would find him. Wherever he was.

_Hurry up, please!_

Cisco woke cuffed to a steel pipe along the inside of something that based upon the swaying of the floor, must have been a ship of some kind. He struggled to get up but his hands were cuffed at an odd angle above his head and he couldn’t gain his footing, especially with the swaying of the ship. He had no idea how long he’d been out for, but the last thing he remembered was earth-2’s Thawne forcing him to drink something, then he had passed out.

_That bastard probably drugged me._

Cisco tugged on the cuffs, but they held in place. He experimented with throwing a sonic blast, but it worked about as well as his pitiful attempts at vibing on this new earth. He sighed and leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. The ship swayed and Cisco found himself growing more and more nauseated. Was Barry alright? What about Harry? How was Jesse doing? Would he ever see Caitlin again? How long would he be stuck as a…slave? Cisco shuddered. He was a slave now. A slave to the doppelganger of the man who had ruined his life.

Cisco leaned back against the wall, trying to rest. It was difficult with the cuffs above his head, but eventually he was able to fall back to sleep.

 

He woke up again this time with Thawne kneeling in front of him, two jars of what looked like some kind of paste next to him. Cisco pulled against his restraints trying to keep as far away from Thawne as possible, but he was trapped where he was. “ _What do you want from me?”_ His voice shook as he realized he was nearing a breakdown. Thawne remained still and Cisco took a few deep breaths, wary of the man’s eyes on him.

When Cisco had calmed down sufficiently, Thawne spoke. “I hear that you’re from another world. Is this true?” Cisco shuddered, but he nodded. “Similar to ours?”

Cisco nodded again. “Close enough…”

Other-Thawne smiled. Cisco winced. “Has he told you about me?” Thawne asked, almost conversationally.

Cisco looked up at him. “What?”

“My old slave. Has he told you about me?”

Hands clenched in their cuffs as Cisco realized Thawne was talking about Harry. “He’s nobody’s slave, don’t you call him tha- mmph!”

Cisco tried to yank his head out of Thawne’s grip as the man tightened his hand which he had slammed across Cisco’s mouth. “Insolence isn’t advised, traveler.” Cisco began shaking, eyes tearing up as he tried to force down the terror. Why did everyone find out about this? Why couldn’t he overcome this? Thawne noticed his reaction and chuckled darkly. “Oh? Do you have a fear of having your mouth covered?” Displeased when he didn’t get a response, Thawne tightened his grip over Cisco’s mouth till it was painful. Bruising. “I asked you a question, creature.” Cisco nodded his head as best he could around the panic. His ears started ringing, and he couldn’t stop the tears from tracing down his face.

Thawne released him and Cisco nearly coughed as the air inside his lungs fought to get out around the air Cisco was gasping in. Thawne sat back and observed him, letting the panic attack play out before he moved again. When Cisco had calmed down sufficiently he sat back and glared at Thawne. “You still haven’t explained what you want from me.” His voice was hoarse from the panic attack, but he hoped there was enough steel in it to make Thawne realize that he wouldn’t shut up and be a model slave. Unfortunately Thawne just seemed amused.

“What I want from you? Oh, what a…delightful explanation there is to that. You see, your friend, my old slave, was a prisoner of war. I saved his life by taking him on as a slave. Otherwise he would have been sacrificed to our gods.” Thawne at this point in time lifted one of the jars next to him, dipping his fingers into the paste. Cisco tried to shy away but Thawne held him still with one hand as he dragged two fingers down Cisco’s face, marking him with black paint. He then switched to white paint from the other jar and continued painting the stripes down Cisco’s face as he talked. “He betrayed me and my culture when he ran away. Slaves are the property of the nobles they are bought by, and he owes me a debt as I saved his life. Him running away from me was a dishonor to my entire culture, so now I am collecting on that debt.”

Cisco shuddered as Thawne gripped his arms, covering them with the same painted stripes. “How is taking me collecting on that debt?” Cisco asked, voice shaking. “Harry doesn’t even know I’m gone yet.”

Thawne leaned back to stare him. “You don’t even realize how long you’ve been out, do you, traveler?”

Cisco’s eyes widened. He couldn’t have been gone for more than a few hours, right? At most a couple of days?

Thawne smirked, starting his work on Cisco’s other arm. “You’ve been drugged for the better part of the month. There is no way my old slave doesn’t know you are missing by now.”

Cisco felt ice run through his veins. A month? A whole month, and he had been unconscious? Drugged? “But…but I woke up, before…?”

Thawne nodded. “We stopped feeding the drug into your system 36 hours ago. It’s entirely possible you regained consciousness for a few minutes.”

Cisco shook as it sank in, his mind trying to reason out what was happening. Finally, he asked again. “ _What do you need me for?”_ He was terrified he already knew the answer.

Thawne produced a knife from behind the kilt he wore. “I hope you hold no particular fondness for this shirt.” Cisco shivered again as cold air hit his chest where Thawne had sliced off his shirt, discarding it on the floor. “To answer your question, traveler, you will take his place. He owes me a debt to be a sacrifice to our gods. You will have to do.”

Cisco bucked as Thawne traced the cold ceremonial paint down his chest, fear and bile rising to his throat as he realized he’d been right. They were going to kill him. They were going to carve out his heart, and sacrifice it to their gods. He was essentially dead. And he’d been gone for a whole month…Barry was long gone back on earth-1 by now. No one was coming to save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there! We're almost to the end! Final story arc!!!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco gets a rundown of what's going to be expected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally wrote this I also wrote other scenes in to explain how they figured things out without Cisco, but then I figured: Eh, you guys can come up with a perfectly good explanation for that :)   
> (I'm trying to not say that it was boring and needed dropped, but it REALLY needed dropped!)

It was only when Thawne dragged him to his feet that Cisco realized Thawne couldn’t be lying about that month. His legs shook under him and he could barely stand his legs had weakened so much. Thawne recuffed Cisco’s hands in front of him, then dragged Cisco out of the door of whatever ship they were on. Thawne was dressed in many feathers and a large headrest, a kilt, and his face, legs, and arms were covered in red and black paint. It was a fearsome sight.

Cisco was half-dragged off of the ship, and he winced at the brightness of the sun shining down. He remembered Harry mentioning Peru, and realized that he must be at Thawne’s home there. Oh well, at least he wouldn’t be cold when he died. Unlike last time.

Once inside some form of gate, Thawne pulled Cisco by the arm towards what looked like a courtyard where about ten elders stood around, talking amongst themselves in a language Cisco didn’t recognize. They all stopped to stare at him, and Thawne reached behind him to grab his shoulder and push him down onto the cobblestones of the courtyard. They then began discussing things. _My death, no doubt._ Cisco clenched his hands inside the cuffs. He’d been trying since he woke up, but he couldn’t get anything from his powers. They talked for several minutes, their tones excited and Cisco worried about what the ritual for his sacrifice might include.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of conversation and Cisco desperately wishing for a shirt, and a bath, everyone in the circle nodded their respects (at least Cisco assumed it was their respects) to Thawne, and left. Thawne gripped Cisco by the arm again and hauled him up, walking him inside. Cisco felt like melting to the floor in relief at the air conditioning. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, relaxing as best he could.

It was Thawne’s amused laughter that brought Cisco back to the reality of his situation. He lifted his head again, opening his eyes and glaring at Thawne. “Make yourself at home, creature.” Cisco lifted his still-cuffed wrists, but Thawne shook his head. “Oh, no. I observed you unconscious for a month, I know what will happen if I take those off. It honestly doesn’t surprise me that my old slave picked a meta for a friend.” Cisco paled. Thawne knew about his powers, which had been how he’d escaped him the last time. More than that though, Thawne had watched him sleep? How creepy was that?

Then it sunk in. “My powers are back?”

Thawne chuckled. “Oh, had some difficulty with them when you got here? Zoom said you might. Your powers took some time to get used to the vibrations of this earth. Honestly though, I was surprised. He never told me you could shake the very earth around you. The gods will be thrilled to have a sacrifice such as yourself.”

Cisco shrank back against the nearest wall he could find. “You still mean to kill me then.”

Thawne shrugged. “You’ll probably die, but that isn’t up to me. It’s up to the gods if they wish for you to live. You might. It hasn’t happened in several hundred years, but it has happened before.”

Cisco stared at him in shock. “Is the human anatomy different in this earth that you can-can carve out a human heart-”Cisco nearly broke down, but he forced himself to keep going. “and sacrifice it to your gods for your own ‘successful harvest’ and have them live through it?!”

Thawne’s smile had grown much darker, and he stood there for a moment, before slamming Cisco back against the wall with his left arm holding him there, while he drew the knife from his kilt. “Carving out a human heart is for health, and luck.” Thawne’s blade tapped Cisco on the chest, above his heart. Cisco shuddered, fighting back the memories. “For the harvest, we’ve found that blood from somewhere much more…” Thawne’s knife strayed low, to above Cisco’s jeans. “personal, works best. That blood is spilled out onto the idol, sometimes baked into our maize and formed into ceremonial bread and we eat it.”

Tears tracked down Cisco’s face again as he weakly pushed against Thawne with his cuffed hands. “Stop…” Cisco was shaking now, looking up at the man who had murdered him before, and it looked like he was planning on doing worse to him this time.

Thankfully, Thawne backed up, sheathing his knife. “That’s not the sacrifice you are here for.” Cisco slid down the wall, breathing in deeply in relief. “I wouldn’t look so relived just yet. This ritual takes two months to prepare, so it looks like I’m stuck with you for a little while.” Thawne didn’t look too upset about that.

Cisco looked up at him. “What will this one take?” He hoped it was nothing like the last ritual described.

Thawne knelt down to his level again, which was anything but comforting. “They light a fire to our gods,” Cisco winced. He didn’t want to be near flame any more now than he had around Heatwave. “they burn incense and pray, and they tie a ceremonial rope around you as we stand at the gate to the other side.” Cisco wasn’t sure what this gate was, but he hoped it was a way home. “And when the smoke burns out, they throw you over the edge.” Cisco corrected that. This didn’t sound like a way home, and he really didn’t like what it sounded like. “This starts at daybreak. At noon they pull your body back from the brink. If you have survived the water, they ask you what the gods have said. If you do die, we burry you. Hoping that the gods have accepted our sacrifice.”

Cisco realized what he was talking about. “You plan to drown me…” His voice was small, and Thawne grinned as if he relished Cisco’s fear. He probably did.

“If you survive, the gods have decided that they like you. But as I said, no man has survived in several hundred years. Even with your powers, I doubt you’ll change things.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there! I'm gonna try to map out how many more chapters this is gonna have pretty soon, so we should be wrapping this story up soon! Yay!!!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for your comments!!! It makes my day!!!

Cisco spent the rest of the day examining the house, finding it to be relatively well secured. That night he wasn’t sure what he expected to happen. It wasn’t for Thawne to drag him into his own room and chain Cisco to the wall above a second mattress on the floor.

“What am I going to do in a locked cell that I can’t do here?” Cisco complained as Thawne loosened the chain enough to allow him to lie down.

Thawne stood back. “I learned a long time ago that Americans are clever beyond their years and resources. I won’t make the same mistakes I made back then.”

Cisco grew quiet realizing that it was Harry that Thawne was referring to. Cisco wasn’t sure when he’d grown so protective of the dickhead, but he was.

It took several hours, but eventually Cisco fell asleep, surrounded by the noises of the rainforest. The windows were open, and the heat wasn’t unbearable as it had been that afternoon.

In contrast, Cisco’s dreams were cold, the room he stood in freezing. He knew what this was, but he hated it still. The recording played behind him, that voice echoing and merging with that of the murderer he stood before. Blue streaked through the room, the voices louder than normal. Cisco could hear his own voice shake, and Thawne’s voice condescending. This time though, Cisco saw chains on his own wrists.

He saw his own blood pooling on the floor, Thawne standing over him, licking his hand that had Cisco’s blood dripping from it. He saw Barry and Caitlin, dead. Harry in chains, Zoom standing over them all, laughing. Cisco tried to curl in on himself, to protect himself from the dream, but it didn’t work. Suddenly he was surrounded by cold, but it was Thawne firing the weapon, with Snart’s severed hand still attached. Quickly that changed to Lewis, killing him with his own weapon. But no matter what happened, he couldn’t get out of the bunker. He was trapped there. Trapped, and he heard thousands of voices. Voices calling for his blood. Chanting in a strange language, but Cisco knew what they were saying. They wanted him dead.

He bolted upright, catching his breath. He closed his eyes, but snapped them open again as images flooded his mind. He focused on his hands clenching and unclenching in front of him, and forced himself to relax. He yelped as he looked up again, catching sight of Thawne standing over his makeshift-bed on the floor. He brought his hands up protectively, and stared defiantly at Thawne. “Shouldn’t you be asleep right now? Or are you going to try and say that suddenly you actually care.”

Thawne laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, I would be asleep, but how could I ignore such beautiful screams like that?”

Cisco curled himself into a tighter ball, shivering despite the heat. Thawne slowly knelt down to Cisco’s level, keeping eye contact with the young man. Cisco stared at him, shivering. He’d been screaming. He’d been screaming, and Thawne had heard. He’d been screaming. Thawne…Thawne had _enjoyed_ his screams. Cisco bit back the sob that was forming in his throat at the thought of what Thawne might do to get more screams from him.

Thawne stayed still, waiting for Cisco to calm down before speaking. “I don’t remember you being this vocal when you were drugged. What’s started these nightmares?”

Cisco shook his head, staying silent as his wide eyes followed Thawne’s movements. Thawne simply sighed. “It’s of no matter. The more you keep locked in your head, the more screams I’ll hear each night. Sleep well.”

Thawne stood up and returned to his bed, leaving Cisco where he was.

Cisco didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

 

Cisco had been missing for 5 weeks when they returned. Jesse and Caitlin travelled with them as they re-entered the S.T.A.R. labs on Earth-2, which Jesse seemed to embrace as a second home. It practically was, with how much she had visited her father there when he stayed late working.

Barry immediately set to hunting for Zoom, convinced that finding him was finding Cisco. Harry wished it would be that simple, and encouraged Barry to keep searching. But he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Zoom had made sure that they couldn’t find Cisco when they had last been on that earth, so clearly he didn’t want anyone finding the young man.

Harry started pulling up everything he had on Zoom’s old contacts, running through lists of known whereabouts and likely people that Zoom would trust enough to leave someone with. Because Cisco wasn’t dead. That wasn’t happening. Cisco couldn’t be dead. Even if it had taken them 5 weeks, Cisco couldn’t be dead. Whatever state he was in when they found him, it would be something they could fix. Because they would find him, and help him recover. He’d risked too much for all of them to have them not be in time.

 

Caitlin and Jesse wandered about Earth-2, looking at the many different shops and changes in this other world. Jesse was thrilled to finally be the one showing Caitlin around, instead of Caitlin and Iris dragging her everywhere. It was while they were shopping in one of the malls that it happened. Someone gave her a sideways look, then turned and walked away, as quickly as possible.

Caitlin stared at him as he left. “What was up with him?” She asked Jesse bemusedly.

Jesse looked slightly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, we forgot to tell you. It’s not something you should have to deal with too much, but your doppelganger here. She’s…part of Zoom’s crew. She looks a bit different. Doesn’t smile as much, and has icy hair and pale skin with blue lips. But anyone who looks closely at you will be able to notice the similarities.”

Caitlin’s smile became a little more forced, but she nodded. This was what Harry dealt with back on Earth-1, she could deal with it here. Besides, she had things she needed to get for when they found Cisco.

 

Cisco stood in the middle of the courtyard of Thawne’s house, in a different pair of Jeans and a very loose t-shirt. He’d been able to take a bath earlier and wash off the paint, but he still wasn’t sure what he was doing. Especially when Thawne removed the handcuffs and replaced them with individual cuffs per each wrist.

Somehow Cisco felt like even more of a slave with these cuffs on, but he kept that thought to himself. Thawne was pacing around him, eyeing him up and down. Finally he came to a stop directly behind Cisco, but when Cisco tried to turn and face him the man placed a hand on the back of Cisco’s neck keeping him there. Cisco tried to suppress the shudder, but failed as Thawne chuckled behind him.

“So. Breacher. Who was I to you on the earth you’re from?”

Cisco tried to turn and lash out, but Thawne caught the move and with the hand that was still on the back of Cisco’s neck he drove the smaller man to the ground, placing a knee on Cisco’s back. Cisco squirmed under his grip but Thawne didn’t let up.

“Well, for such a strong reaction, you must have known him very well.”

Cisco was still trying to push his way up, despite the uselessness of it. “What makes you so sure this is a past relationship?” Cisco gritted out between clenched teeth.

Thawne chuckled again. “Because whatever relationship there was, you won’t live long enough for it to continue. Human sacrifice for the gods, remember?”

Cisco stopped struggling for a moment. Every time he remembered that it was like a punch to the gut. He vaguely wondered if they would actually punch him in the gut before they drowned him.

“I’m still waiting for an answer, creature.” Thawne’s voice cut through Cisco’s thoughts like his hand had cut through his ribcage.

Cisco tried on last time to elbow Thawne from the ground, but Thawne caught that too and twisted Cisco’s arm behind him painfully. Cisco clenched his teeth at the pain, breathing as best he could through the sweat, the heat, and the dust of the ground. He wasn’t ready when Thawne pulled on the joint, dislocating it.

Cisco screamed, tears falling as he tried to fight the fire coursing through his arm. Thawne held him still for another minute and let the worst of the pain die down a bit, then he stood up releasing Cisco. Cisco tried to roll to his feet and protect his arm, but when he tried to move the shoulder screamed at him and he froze, convulsing on the ground, letting the tears fall.

When Cisco had stopped choking on his breath, Thawne spoke again. “Let’s try that question again, shall we? Who was my double to you?”

Cisco was still focusing on breathing, clenching his shoulder to try and keep it in one place. Thawne sighed and moved forward, and Cisco threw the hand that had been holding his shoulder out in front of him. “Wait, wait stop! I don’t know, okay? I don’t know how to answer it!” Cisco broke down coughing on the dust, and Thawne narrowed his eyes. When Cisco had gotten his breath again, he lifted his hand again. “He…he was my mentor.”

Thawne snorted. “With the reaction you had to me? Not likely. Do I need to damage you further to get the truth from you?”

Cisco shook his head, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. “I’m not lying! He was my mentor, then he betrayed us. He…” Cisco tried to think of the best way to summarize what he’d gone through without giving Thawne more ammo. “He killed me.” Cisco raised his hand further to stop Thawne from doing anything before he could explain. “My powers, I can see other timelines…your doppelganger was my mentor, but then he killed me. A friend who can…time travel, reset it, but I can still see it. That’s what my nightmare was about last night. That why…all of this.”

Thawne stood towering above Cisco, then he knelt and picked Cisco up by his good arm. “Let’s say I believe you. We’re going to have a lot to talk about. So why don’t we start with my fixing that arm. I can always dislocate it again if I need to.”

Cisco shuddered, but he followed as Thawne pulled him along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to a happy ending...of sorts...


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco decides it's time for him to escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup! I've decided how many chapters are left! HEHEHE!!!!!

Finding Zoom was unfortunately easy. He made no secret of where he was at, instead coming out to fight Barry. There was blue and yellow lightning crackling everywhere, and Barry had thought that with the information on Hunter’s parents they might have a chance of stopping him in his tracks. It almost worked. But when Barry tried to subdue Zoom he turned around and grabbed Barry, pinning him to the ground.

In an instant he had the device that Harry had used, and was plunging it into Barry’s chest. Barry’s breath nearly stopped as Zoom started draining the speedforce from him, but Harry ran into the room followed by Caitlin and Jesse.

“Hunter, stop!” Cried Caitlin.

Zoom stared at her for a moment, but dodged the blast from Harry’s gun, speeding forward. Unfortunately for him, he had left the syringe in Barry’s chest. The blast from the gun caught the device, shattering it and releasing speed force energy into the room. What none of them were ready for was for that energy to hit Jesse, sending her into the wall. With Barry down, Zoom would have been able to do anything, but Caitlin was still there.

“Hunter, if there is any part of you that ever cared for me, stop this. Let them go.”

Hunter stood still for just a moment, but that was enough for Barry to regain his breath and move forward, plunging two vials of Cisco and Harry’s formula into Zoom’s leg. Zoom howled, moving forward to strike them, but suddenly there was another speedster in the room, tackling Zoom. Or, more accurately, crashing into Zoom. Zoom hit the floor hard, and in a few moments was unconscious from the serum. 

The new speedster stood up, still vibrating, but Harry could vaguely make out her form. “Jesse?”

Jesse looked to her father, and he dropped to catch her as she fainted.

 

It had been two weeks since he’d woken up on that ship. Every few days some of the elders from the tribe would stop by to visit Thawne, and Cisco would end up painted in the black and white stripes again and be forced to kneel in the courtyard without his shirt for a few hours. He was starting to get the feeling that it was some kind of ritual, but he hated it. He usually tried to understand other religions, but this was one religion he was ticked off with.

That night he woke up screaming again. He lay there, convulsing on the mattress, trying to get the images out of his head. The images of Jesse in a coma, Barry injured. Caitlin worried. It had all seemed so…real. More than most of his dreams, and those dreams were aided by his vibes.

_Wait, my vibes. My vibes are starting to come back! Maybe these power dampeners aren’t working as well as he’d like for me to believe._

Thawne sat in a chair watching Cisco. Somehow he never got tired of Cisco’s fitful nights.

It wasn’t as if Cisco did anything to get tired during the day. Typically he would get dragged everywhere by Thawne, answering questions and in general avoiding thinking about where he was. When Cisco had first arrived, he’d thought that the best way to escape was to slip his restraints some time at night. Now he had changed his mind. The best way to get out was to escape sometime during the morning, before the sun had reached its height. Thawne typically left him alone for an hour in the morning to let him bathe in privacy. Cisco figured he could go without a bath for a few days if it meant getting away from Thawne.

He’d try it soon. Not yet, because Thawne still didn’t trust him not to do anything. But soon. He couldn’t stay here for much longer.

 

Five days later he decided it’d been enough time. He found that while the house seemed impenetrable when he’d first arrived, he now knew his way around better, and was able to make it to the fence without much difficulty. With his muscles stronger since he’d been awake, he was able to scale the walls without too much difficulty, and leap to the other side of the wall.

He waited till he was sure he couldn’t hear anyone chasing him, then he made his way through the city. He argued with himself on trying to stow away on a ship or making his own way in the jungles of E-2. Deciding that he couldn’t trust the people here to not turn him back over to Thawne, or decide to do something else with him, he made his way to the jungles, hoping to find something to help him figure out how to get the cuffs off. He entered the jungle, and began forging his way inward.

 

Thawne returned from another meeting with the elders of the tribe. He smirked when he found the compound empty of the traveler. Thawne had noticed him being much more compliant and less argumentative in the last few days. It was obvious he’d been planning to escape as soon as he thought Thawne had dropped his guard. It would make things easier with the high council that he had tried this.

Thawne knew by instinct that the creature wouldn’t try to escape with the help of any humans. The fear evidenced by the boy showed that he didn’t trust Thawne’s culture at all, so he’d try to escape through the jungle. Thawne froze for a moment. Since when was he thinking of the breacher as a boy? He was always just a creature. He’d avoided learning any form of the thing’s name in order to avoid such sentiment.

He shook his head and kept moving. He knew the jungles like the back of his hand. He would have no difficulty in overtaking the breacher. What he wasn’t counting on was something else finding him first.

 

Cisco hated to admit it, but he was lost. He didn’t know anything about the jungle, and in avoiding plants that he thought looked poisonous, he had lost track of where he’d begun. He vaguely heard something behind him, so he ducked behind a tree for cover. Once he thought it had passed, he peered out again. Seeing nothing, he continued walking. “What’s wrong with this freaky ass jungle anyway? Everything looks poisoned, and it’s like nobody takes care of it.”

He sighed and continued walking. He had yet to see anything that he thought might be able to break the locks on the cuffs. An alarmed thought chilled his blood as he realized Thawne might have very well placed a tracker in the cuffs, and might be able to find him using some kind of gps system. He stopped moving and started tugging on the cuffs, trying once again to slip them off his wrists, but all he did was frustrate himself as it failed again.

He shook his head, deciding to try to pick a solid direction to walk in. He later would have chastised himself for staying still for any period of time, as before he heard anything, something hit him in the back and he stumbled forward.  There was a group of 6 men surrounding him, all dressed in tribal attire. They were all grinning.

“Well now, if it isn’t the sacrifice. Running away, are you? You know there’s a punishment for that, right?”

The blow caught him in the stomach, and he doubled over coughing. A kick followed, sending him to the ground. A series of blows followed, each strike more painful than the last, and Cisco found breath getting harder and harder as pain overwhelmed him. He focused on his breathing, trying to stay as still as he could till they left.

A sharp snap was heard, and Cisco could have sworn he was going into shock. How was that not  a broken bone? Then the world filtered into shades of blue and he realized it. The cuff had snapped!

He waited still, listening, waiting for the right moment. Almost… and….There! Right as all the hunters stood up, Cisco sent a blast out, sending them all crashing backwards, a series of snaps and rustling sounded as they fell through the brush and trees of the jungle.

This time he felt it.

A scream tore out of his mouth as he clutched his hand to his chest, not  daring to look at it. That, was a broken bone. No doubt.

Cisco didn’t give himself time to think as he ran forward, away from the hunters. That was all he thought about, getting away from them.

It was not until he stopped running that he realized he had left his water back where the hunters had fallen. But he didn’t have time to go back for it, he had to keep going. Had to keep running.

He ran forward, taking care not  to jostle his arm too much or make too much noise. He kept his ears open at the same time. There had to be water nearby. There had to be.

He wasn’t sure how long he ran for, pain lancing up his arm at every step, but suddenly the ground was swept from under his feet and there were arms encircling him, one around his waist keeping his arms pinned, the other across his mouth. Cisco screamed into the hand muffling his voice, tears falling as his battered body fought against the arms surrounding him.

“Shh!” The voice hissed. Cisco’s eyes snapped open. He knew that voice.

 

Thawne had heard the scream, and realized that he probably wasn’t the only person out there looking for the boy. There were many hunters in the woods who would love the chance to get their hands on a human sacrifice, especially one from another country. There was a belief that had cropped up in the past few hundred years that the blood of a human sacrifice could bring luck to those who drank it. It was part of how people came to believe in vampires and other such creatures. Thawne held no such beliefs, as they seemed too modern to have any factual basis, but there were those who would do anything for the luck brought by the pain of a sacrifice.

Thawne started running towards where he’d heard the scream emanating from. He stopped as he heard footsteps running towards him, and hid himself behind a tree in case it was an opponent. He saw the breacher run past him, and reached out encircling his creature with one arm, covering his mouth with the other to prevent him from making noise and alerting those hunting him of their location. While Thawne could take them on, he wanted to avoid a confrontation if at all possible. The boy struggled in his arms, screaming into his hand. Thawne felt the tears slipping down the boy’s face and onto his hands, and even from behind him Thawne could see the bruises forming.

“Shh!” He hissed. “Do you want to draw the attention of the hunters?”

The kid froze in his grip, small sobs still escaping his mouth to get caught by Thawne’s hand. Thawne kept his hand there to keep him from making more noises, but in the process he felt the tears slipping down the kid’s face. This wasn’t fear, the kid was in pain. And probably a lot of it. They stayed behind the tree, waiting till they’d heard the hunters rush past, oblivious to them. The hunters might have been good, but Thawne was one of the heads of the tribe for a reason.

When he was certain they were gone, he release the kid and set him against another tree, which the kid slid down and curled up into a ball, cradling his left arm to his chest.

Thawne stood, crossing his arms. “You thought you could escape, eh? How did that fare for you?”

The boy just curled up into a tighter ball, hair falling to cover his face. He let out a small whimper, and that’s when Thawne saw it. He knelt down to the kid’s side, brushing the hair aside.

The kid flinched away from him, and Thawne’s jaw clenched at the mass of bruises on the kid’s face, but that wasn’t what had drawn his attention. “Let me see your arm.”

The boy shook his head, but Thawne had had enough of it. He reached out, and the kid threw himself as far back into the tree as possible, which wasn’t that far. He choked out a sob, but Thawne had grasped his upper arm and slowly pulled the injured limb towards himself to look at it.

It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. The entirety of the hand and forearm were a mass of red and purple, with clear blood blisters and bruises under the skin. No wonder the kid had been in such pain. But the shocking thing was that he couldn’t find a point of impact. It was as if the entire arm had been shattered at the same moment, from the inside.

Then he noticed the lack of a cuff. He took a deep breath, steadying his nerves. “Did your powers do this?”

The child nodded, tears tracking down his face. Thawne sighed and nodded, grabbing the kid’s other arm and helping him stand up. He collapsed almost immediately. Thawne sighed, picking the boy up and carrying him back towards the compound, ignoring the way he shook in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's almost done..... :) I've been working on this for so long.... yay!!!!


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody explains anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness!!! Thank you guys!!! Eeek!!! I'm so happy!!!!!   
> In case you've been wondering where Len was this whole time......

Cisco hadn’t noticed how much he was overheating till he got into the air conditioning. Thawne set him on a couch he had, checking his forehead and walking away. For some reason he began looking like Harry. Cisco shook his head. Those two looked nothing alike! But then Cisco began seeing other things too. The room swayed, and he saw blue lights dancing at the edge of his vision. He tried to sit up and look at the lights, but they kept evading his vision, always dancing in the corner of his eyes. He stood up and the room swayed, but he kept turning in a circle, trying to see where those lights were. Everything was…hard to focus on. He noticed a hand was on his shoulder, guiding him back down. Or was he holding him still while the room shifted around him?

Thawne was pressing a glass of something to his lips. Oh. Right. Water. He was saying something too. What was that?

“Dehydrated….hallucinating….shock…you…stay…” Cisco nodded. He’d listen to the voice. Voices always knew what they were saying, right? He saw darkness in the corner of his eyes and followed it, but this time the darkness stayed put and he was quickly engulfed by it.

 

Thawne shook his head. Northerners had no idea how to handle the heat of Peru. The kid had overheated and between that and the pain, had gone into some kind of delirious shock. Thankfully he had blacked out after drinking some water. Hopefully when he woke up again he’d be in better shape.

Thawne returned to his own private study, where he read the scrolls of his people. Well, they had been scrolls. Not too long ago some traveler had wandered through and updated them into sturdier books. Still, it was the tale of his people. He was reading them to distract himself that since the boy was injured, the ceremony would have to wait for the full allotment of time. He had been discussing with the elders the possibility of moving the time up, given the advancements made in their technology. Now however, well, the gods did not like their humans to be injured when they were sacrificed. It would take the remaining month of time for the boy to recover. Thawne shuddered at the thought of having to wait another month. Still, the boy was intriguing company to keep. Thawne closed his book. The distraction wasn’t working.  Instead, he returned to the sitting room, taking the chair opposite of the boy’s form. Attachment was impossible to avoid now. It was time to figure out the boy’s name.

 

When Cisco woke up his head was fuzzier, but clearer. Wait, clearer AND fuzzier? How did that work? He groaned, and promptly wanted to throw up. He took a few deep breaths, getting the nausea under control before he tried to sit up. The second he tried to move his arm though, pain lanced through his arm uncontrollably. Suddenly there was another hand on his shoulder, pushing him down. “You’re still injured, lie still.” He nodded, ready to listen to anything that wouldn’t hurt him.

A moment later there was a hand under his neck helping him sit up slightly, and a cup held up to his mouth. He drank the water, ignoring the strange taste till he’d finished downing it. As the cup was moved away and the hand set him back down, he asked: “What was that?” He opened his eyes to stare up at Thawne, who stared back down at him.

“Pain killer. I need to set the arm.”

Cisco nodded. A few minutes later he could feel Thawne’s hand on his arm again, but when he moved the arm it didn’t hurt nearly as badly. That’s not to say it didn’t hurt, but it didn’t make him want to sever his own arm, so he figured it was an improvement. “Hey, look at me.” Cisco opened his eyes and looked at Thawne. He figured it must have been the pain killers that made it seem comforting. Because there was no way Thawne was actually trying to comfort him, was there?

“What’s your name?” Thawne asked as he slid the arm onto a pillow and got out materials to make a cast.

Cisco blinked up at him. “What?”

Thawne spared him a glance. “Your name. What do people call you? Because I think it’s fairly obvious you know me, but I’ve never heard your name.” Cisco winced as Thawne gently lifted his arm and started wrapping it in the cotton padding. “Or we could sit in silence and you’d have nothing to keep your mind off the pain, your choice.”

Cisco snorted. “Cisco. My friends call me Cisco.” Thawne nodded. “What did those men want from me?”

Thawne stopped what he was doing for a moment, looking down at Cisco. “We can talk about that later. That wouldn’t keep your mind off the pain.” Thawne was looking down at what Cisco realized must be some horrible looking bruising. He didn’t even want to think about what damage they had done to his chest and stomach. Thawne started working on the outer layer of the cast, which Cisco noticed ranged all the way up to his elbow.

“Alright then, what happened to my arm?”

Thawne barely spared him a glance at this question. “What do you mean? It’s broken. I thought that much was obvious.”

Cisco snorted. “Yeah, not what I meant. I meant how did it break? It was fine when they were kicking and the cuff broke, but when I went to use my powers suddenly it was like my arm was on fire? That doesn’t make any sense. Nothing like that’s ever happened before.”

Thawne sighed. “What makes you think I know?”

Cisco almost smiled. Almost. It was close. “Because he always knew. He would know what was going on, without anyone having to tell him hardly anything.”

Thawne smiled, finishing the cast, but holding Cisco’s arm upright. “So. Because the other me was clever, you think I know what’s going on with your head and your powers?” Cisco shrugged. “Alright then. It seems that your powers use vibrations to hone in on the energy of different universes. You used your powers to defend yourself from the men who attacked you, but you didn’t have a handle on it. The powers got out of hand, and fractured your hand while you were using them.”

Thawne stopped talking, but still held Cisco’s arm up. He glanced down at Cisco. “And you must be very high right now.”

Cisco tilted his head. “What makes you say that?”

Thawne shrugged. “You haven’t asked me why I’m not setting down your arm yet.”

“You’re letting the cast dry or else it won’t stick.”

Thawne looked impressed. “Were you some form of doctor where you are from?”

Cisco shook his head. “This isn’t the first bone I’ve broken.”

Thawne nodded. “Does this have anything to do with how fast you ran even with an injury?”

Cisco looked away. “I’ve run from enemies before.”

Thawne nodded, staying quiet. There was no point in pushing the kid anyway.

 

It had been almost 6 weeks since they had arrived back on Earth 2, and a month since they’d taken down Zoom. After the first week of nothing, Caitlin had returned to Earth 1 to keep an eye on things there. Every few days Barry would race back to update her of how they were doing, but even with Jesse’s suddenly becoming a speedster they were having no luck with finding Cisco. Barry was just arriving at the S.T.A.R. labs on Earth 1 when some instinct told him something was different. As he gazed around the breach room he noticed that Caitlin wasn’t there.

Suddenly her voice came over the speaker system. “Barry, could you get to the cortex? Thanks.” She sounded…annoyed?

Barry flashed up to the cortex, to freeze at the sight of- “Snart?!”

Lisa and Leonard Snart were there, looking both dangerous and annoyed. “Flash. How good to see you again.” Leonard drawled, whereas Lisa just rolled her eyes.

“Oh please. I already know who he is. Barry Allen, CSI for the Central City Police.” Leonard glared at her.

“And how did you come by this information?”

Lisa shrugged. “I’ve been here? When Cisco was recovering I would visit. Remember? If I couldn’t figure out who the Flash was while he was standing right there, then I wouldn’t be much of a criminal.”

“Wait, what are you doing here?” Barry interrupted the siblings.

Lisa took it upon herself to answer. “Lenny here just got back home from going travelling through _time,”_ She punctuated that with a glare, “and when he showed up at Cisco’s apartment no one was there. So, he figured he’d stop by here to see what was going on.”

Caitlin stared between the siblings. “ _time travel?_ There’s no way you were time travelling, that takes a speedster!”

Barry shook his head at her. “No, they’re telling the truth. I heard about it from Stein. He and Jax and a group of the others got recruited to fight Savage through time, and Snart and Rory were on that team.”

Caitlin stared at him. “How long have you been sitting on that information?”

Barry shrugged. “Since January?” Then he turned back to Snart. “Cisco’s not here right now. If you want to help you can, but I’m not sure there’s much you can do.”

Snart frowned. “Help? What’s happening.”

Barry glanced to Caitlin who shrugged and gestured for him to go ahead. “Cisco’s missing. We were travelling to another earth to help save the daughter of…someone who needed our help,”

“Earth 2’s Harrison Wells.” Snart interrupted.

Barr froze. “Wait, what? Yes, that’s right but, how did you know that?”

Snart shrugged. “Cisco explained it to me a few weeks before I left.”

Barry shook his head at that. “Alright, well when we went over there to fight him, we ended up fighting Zoom, the speedster there before we’d planned to, and he took me captive. I was able to find Harry’s daughter Jesse, but when we got back we learned that Zoom had also taken Cisco, but we don’t know where to. We were able to bring down Zoom a month ago, but we’ve still been unable to find Cisco anywhere, and Zoom’s not talking.”

Snart’s hand strayed to his gun. “Need me to motivate him?”

Barry shook his head. “No. No, we’re finding him morally. I’m not turning into a monster to find Cisco when there are other ways.”

Snart shrugged. “Suit yourself. But what are you planning on doing?”

Barry shook his head. “I don’t know. Harry’s back on Earth 2, and we’ve been working on this for the past few months.”

Snart nodded. “Well then. Looks like I’ll be going with you to that other Earth.”

Barry stared at him. “Really?”

Lisa inserted herself into the conversation. “Um, is no one going to mention the fact that Cisco’s been missing for almost _Three Months_ and you don’t have any clue as to where he is?”

Barry lowered his head. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, I’m failing him.”

Snart laughed humorlessly. “That doesn’t need to be said, we all knew that. But we are getting Cisco back.” Barry nodded.

 

Back on Earth 2, Harry was working through the list again, this time checking for anything that might have _anything_ to do with Zoom. Any movements that had changed since Zoom was defeated, or anyone that had changed patterns in the last few weeks. He still had nothing.

Barry was back then, but he wasn’t alone. Harry stared at Leonard Snart and his sister. “Hello again.”

Snart nodded. “You too. So we’ve got no luck in finding Cisco? What’ve you been checking?”

Barry glanced between the two of them. “Wait, you’ve met?”

Harry nodded. “Cisco and I got trapped in the elevator at S.T.A.R labs one evening for a few hours, he’s the one who got us out.” He turned to Snart. “Now to answer your question, I’ve run every test, scan, and algorithm I can think of. I’ve even gone over most of this manually. The question is, what do you think I haven’t done?”

Snart nodded. “Have you examined his safe houses to see if there are any hidden rooms?”

Barry nodded. “Yup. First thing I did.”

“Have you checked for any abnormal seismic activity?”

Harry bit out a laugh. “Of course. That’s the first thing I did when Thawne from the future had Cisco.”

Barry glanced between them. “Wait, why did you look for seismic activity?”

Harry answered him, but Snart was standing there contemplating. “His vibes are only half of his powers. He also emits sonic vibrations from his palms when he gets scared.”

“How did you learn that? Does nobody tell me these things??” Barry shook his head.

Snart spoke up then. “Have we checked this earth’s Thawne?”

Barry shook his head. “There’d be no point, he’s from the future, he isn’t even born yet. Wait, Harry, what are you doing?”

Harry was sitting down at his desk, rapidly typing. “I never thought of it because he has no connection to Zoom, but now that I think about it he was in town when we were. He left…” He examined the data on the computer thoroughly. “A few days later. It could be. It very well could be.”

Barry shook his head. “Wait, so he might be the one who has Cisco? That’s not good.”

Snart nodded. “If Harry’s right, then we need to get him out of there, quickly.”

Harry shook his head. “That’s not the worst of it.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “In this world, Thawne is the equivalent of a Mayan chieftain. He is, incredibly powerful, and he lives in the middle of a compound in the southernmost tip of Peru. If he has Cisco, then it’s almost a guarantee that that’s where Cisco will be. With Barry’s speed, breaking in shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s getting there and back that will be a problem. It’s thousands of miles away. It’ll take you hours to get there, and hours to get back. Can you carry a human with you for that long?”

Barry nodded, but he was still confused. “Harry, how do you…know, so much about this? I’ve been here for the last few months, this world’s internet isn’t that much different than ours, and it DOESN’T have information like that.”

Snart noticed the change in Harry’s attitude. “You know him don’t you.”

Harry nodded. “The fact is, when I was younger, before I got married or became a scientist, I was drafted into the war of the Americas. A few months in I was in a battle, and was injured. Before I could get back to camp, I passed out. When I woke up I was being sent off as a prisoner of war. Before I made it to that camp though, the ship I was on was attacked by pirates. Long story short, I was a slave of a Mayan ruler in Peru for two years before I escaped. Him. I was a slave, to him. If he’s the one who has Cisco, then it’s probably to get revenge on me. He felt…insulted, by my leaving. I spent a few years after escaping constantly watching the news for any signs of his movements to make sure I stayed away from him.”

Harry hadn’t looked up during the whole explanation. When he finally did, he saw Barry’s sympathetic eyes. “It’s alright, Harry. We’ll get Cisco back. And we won’t let him hurt you.”

Snart nodded.

“Quick question, how come nobody told me that I was the sister to the _mayor_ on this earth?” Lisa asked, entering the room again with a gawking Jesse in tow. Nobody had even seen her leave the room.

Snart raised an eyebrow at this, while Jesse just jumped up and down. “This is awesome! I’m meeting the doppelganger of the mayor! Oh my goodness, this is great! She’s great too! Seriously, how come none of you told me about this?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this was a lot of explanation. I was pretty upset with Legends for killing of Len, so.....yeah. Nope. That didn't happen. I refuse to accept it. Didn't happen. Nope. No way. Not happening.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sacrifice day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter this time, sorry, I just felt that this was the best place to pause. I'll post more later to make up for it :)

Cisco shivered. It was here. The day of the sacrifice. He stood in front of Thawne as he repainted Cisco’s face, arms, and chest for the ceremony. He shivered under the touch, unsure of what he was going to be required to do. Done with the paint, Thawne brought Cisco’s arms together, being careful of the left one which was just barely healed, and tied them together. He then pulled Cisco behind him out of the door. The moon was still in the sky, as this ceremony started before daybreak. The streets were far from empty though, and lanterns hung in the windows of every house and shop they passed. Cisco could almost forget that Thawne was leading him towards his death. Almost. There was an uncomfortable turn in his stomach as he remembered that in a few hours he would be drowning.

He looked up to the sky instead of ahead at his fate, hoping that Barry and the others were somewhere, safe under those stars. A tear slipped down his face. He wouldn’t see them again. Till now he’d been holding on to the hope that someone might find him and save him. But it had been 3 months since the day he’d arrived on Earth 2. If someone were going to find him they would have done it by now.

When they arrived the elders and priests were already there, gathering round. When he arrived Thawne pushed him to the ground on his knees, and the priest took a torch from one of the elders, lighting a fire that started smelling sickly sweet. They were burning incense.

The priest came to stand in front of Cisco. His headrest was full of feathers, which is how Cisco knew his importance. It seemed that the more ceremonious the occasion, the more historic garb the natives dressed themselves in.

The priest took a second jar of paint, this time blue. He dipped his fingers into it, raising his fingers to Cisco’s face. Cisco flinched away, only to be held in place by Thawne. His breath stuttered as the cold fingers painted along his temple and beneath his lower lip to beneath his chin. The priest then backed away and turned to the fire, and Thawne stepped in front of Cisco, kneeling to look him in the eye.

Cisco hated himself for it, but he found the eyes of his murderer more comforting than the touch of the priest. “Having met you, Cisco…you could survive this.” Cisco couldn’t believe this. But the next words shook him, reminding him of every pain he had tried so desperately to forget. “Despite everything, _you have shown me what it’s like to have a son._ ” Then he began muttering, chanting some kind of prayer as he knelt before Cisco.

All too soon the fire began dying down, and the sunrise began peeking over the top of the hills. The priest pulled him away from Thawne, drawing him to the precipice of what Cisco could now see in the pre dawn light as the roof of a cave which had caved in, leading down to a lake. A rope was tied around his waist, binding his arms to their side, and the priest stood by his side.

“Traveler, ask the gods for us, to bring back the rain and bless our lands. Good luck on your journey.”

The fire smoldered, and died. And Cisco barely had time to realize that Thawne had always been referring to his sacrifice when he called him traveler, before he was pushed off the edge and he fell into the water.

 

The problem that Barry had discovered when he tried to carry Harry with him on his runs, is that he couldn’t carry humans for more than half an hour before they would start getting dizzy. He estimated that he could start from about a thousand miles away from Cisco if he was going to carry him for that far.

Harry decided to wait at the mark, waiting for Barry to get back with Cisco and be ready to treat any injuries he might have. Barry took off shortly after they arrived, which was barely past noon. He just hoped he’d be in time.

 

Cisco hit the water and almost blacked out. With the ropes wet, he slipped out of them easier, rising to the surface of the lake. The pressure inside his head was insane, but at least when he broke the surface of the water he was able to breathe. He looked around. The cave was more like a giant bowl, surrounded by the walls which all curved inwards. So no place to swim to. He’d have to float. He suddenly understood why no one survived this. He had six hours before they would pull him back. The rope was too long for him to cling to it, as his hands would slip off of it. The fall had half stunned him, and he couldn’t float for six hours. He grabbed the rope under the water to hold on to. Just because he couldn’t do something didn’t mean he wasn’t about to try to. He gazed up at the lip of the cave from where he’d been pushed. That was well over one hundred feet. He corrected the half stunning part. His system wouldn’t stay working for much longer. He’d sink to the bottom and drown before long.

Cisco reached for the roped, tying a knot into the rope around his hand, hoping that it would help keep him afloat. He took a few deep breaths, and set about to waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there!!! Yay!!!!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay!!! This is the final part!! I'm working on an epilogue, but this is the conclusion to the dramatics.

Cisco was slipping, and he knew it. His arms ached from keeping him afloat, and his legs felt like lead in the water. He’d had to retie the knot four times so far, and he could only just see the sun above the lip of the cave. He hated this. Who knew dying could take so long? He’d lost track of time after what had to have been an hour, and now had no idea how much more of this he’d have to go through.

 

Cisco jolted himself back from sleep, coughing up the water that had crept into his lungs as he dozed. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stay awake, couldn’t stay alive. His wrist was still tied in the rope, but he vaguely wondered what it would be like to let go. Just sink under the water, and let sleep claim him. Slip into the dreamless sleep that the water offered his numbing limbs. He slowly reached up for the rope, slipping it off of his wrist, letting himself sink down into the depth.

He first embraced the silence and warmth offered by the water. He enjoyed the lack of worry provided by its all encompassing embrace.  That’s when they started. It was like he was vibing with the goggles, but he couldn’t control it. Time started dilating through his head, flashes of blue and death. Always death, surrounding him. People he’d never seen or met, fighting and dying before his eyes. He couldn’t escape it, surrounded by a flood of noise, crashing down on him.

He tried to let out a scream, but his voice got caught by the water which flooded into his lungs, bringing more painful visions. He started convulsing in the water, pain and fear flooding his system. Suddenly, he felt himself being moved. Pulled. He could feel himself leave the water, and he coughed, trying to get the pain out of his voice. He didn’t even know what was pulling him anymore as he blacked out.

 

Thawne hated how his heart clenched painfully as they saw the stricken form of Cisco. The priest knelt by his side, checking his pulse.

“He lives!” The priest declared, and a joyous cry rang out through the people. Thawne knew better however. He moved to kneel beside Cisco, holding his hand gently above Cisco’s mouth and nose. He cursed.

“He might not for long!” He called out, beginning compressions. Cisco must have just lost his strength a few minutes ago. He’d already begun drowning. “Hold on, child!” Thawne muttered under his breath, pushing breath into the boy’s still form. He continued this, trying to bring the child back from the brink. Finally Cisco’s eyes fluttered and he began coughing, turning over onto his side and spitting up the water that had been stuck in his system. He rasped in the air, and Thawne leaned back to give him room. When Cisco had finally gathered his breath, the priest stood before him.

“Traveler, what have the gods told you?”

Cisco looked shaken, his eyes flickering with something Thawne couldn’t read. “They said… they said it would rain.” He breathed out. Everyone began rejoicing, but Thawne knew he’d just said that to make them happy. Something Cisco had seen scared him.

People left to begin their celebration, and Thawne pulled Cisco away from the edge of the cave. Quickly he knew what was wrong. “Your powers showed you things.”

Cisco nodded. “I started drowning, and suddenly…it was like I was surrounded by death and pain. I couldn’t stop vibing everything…” Cisco shivered, collapsing onto the ground and shaking. Thawne reached the top of Cisco’s head.

“You have done well. My old slave’s debt is repaid. You are no longer a prisoner.”

Cisco looked at him, and Thawne sighed, reaching forward and brushing the hair out of Cisco’s face. “I don’t understand.”

Thawne nodded. “You are free to leave. I meant it. You showed me what it’s like to have a son. As a father, even if I hadn’t wanted it, it would be my responsibility to give my son for the offering the tribe required of him. Now that is completed, it would be selfish of me to keep you somewhere you so clearly don’t belong. You’re free to go.”

Thawne reached forward and pulled Cisco into a hug. Cisco stayed still, unsure of what to do. Thawne stood up, nodding to Cisco. “Those hunters shouldn’t bother you. You have served the tribe. Good luck on your travels. Should you need my help, I shall offer it.”

Thawne left, and Cisco was left on the ground staring out at the sky. He was free. He took the hand that hadn’t been injured, and pressed it to the ground. It shook under his fingers, and he carefully sent out a few blasts before collapsing back onto the ground, hoping someone would find him.

 

Barry heard the sonic blasts as he ran, changing course to head towards them. He reached a clearing near a cliff just in time to see a shirtless and very drenched Cisco topple to the ground.

He ran forwards, catching Cisco at the last second. Cisco’s eyes flickered open. “…Barry?”

Cisco sounded terrible, like there was something clogging his voice. “Cisco, hey, I’m here. I’m here Cisco.”

Cisco smiled, and Barry pulled him into a tight hug. Cisco’s arms came round to encircle him, and Barry didn’t think about how weak his hug was. Instead, he gathered Cisco into his arms and took off running.

It took a few minutes longer than half an hour, but eventually Cisco was back with Harry in the medical camp they’d set up. Harry took one look at Cisco and swore. “What did they do, try to drown him?!”

Cisco was falling asleep, but his face was flushed and he felt sickly under Barry’s hand.

“Back up, I need to work on making sure he’s alright before we move again.”

Barry nodded, moving out of Harry’s way.

A few minutes later Harry declared that he was safe to move, and Barry carried both Harry and Cisco the rest of the way to S.T.A.R. labs, returning for the things once he was sure they were both safe.

 

Cisco lay in his cot at earth 2’s star labs, staring up at the ceiling. Everyone had stopped by to visit, but nothing really helped him understand. Thawne had seemed so…cruel, at the beginning. But how much of that had been custom? Was he evil? Had he meant it when he said he saw Cisco as a son? He’d known Cisco for less time than the other Thawne had, but he hadn’t lied to Cisco either. And he hadn’t evern truly been cruel. Well, maybe when he described the different sacrificial rituals. And also maybe when he was trying to get answers out of Cisco. But other than that, he hadn’t been unnecessarily evil…had he?

Cisco turned onto his side, ignoring the maelstrom of thoughts inside his own head. Barry gently knocked on the doorframe before entering. “Hey, how’re you doing?”

Cisco shrugged. It was an honest answer. Barry sat down inside his line of sight. “Do you want to talk about it?” Cisco shook his head. Barry just nodded. He leaned over and placed his hand on Cisco’s arm, and Cisco flinched. He didn’t mean to. He didn’t want to. But he did. It wasn’t that he was scared of Barry, but something about anyone touching him that wasn’t Thawne-

Cisco shut that thought down immediately. Yeah, maybe Thawne had been nice a few times. That didn’t mean what he did was okay.

Barry noticed the flinch, and retracted his hand. “I’m here if you need me.” Barry stood up, and went to pat Cisco on the leg, but thought better of it, choosing instead to pat the bed next to Cisco’s leg.

Cisco tried to sleep. He didn’t do so well.

 

Caitlin and Lisa came in to visit him, as well as Len. Cisco couldn’t even begin to talk to Len about any of it. He just…froze.

Cisco was walking around on his third day back when Harry came to talk to him.

“If you’re here to try and tell me how I should tell everyone what happened, it’s no use. I just can’t say it, okay?”

Harry nodded. “I get that.”

He sat down in one of the chairs. After a few minutes Cisco moved to one opposite him.

“I’m still not talking about it.” Muttered Cisco.

Harry nodded. “Sounds to me like you want to, but can’t.” Cisco crossed his arms, folding in on himself.

“You’re having a hard time remembering he was evil, aren’t you.” Cisco looked up, alarmed. “I’ve been through that stage. You remember that he didn’t really hurt you. You remember that, his culture is different. That he never broke on his people’s rules. That he never beat you without reason. You remember every time he called you something other than creature, or slave, and think maybe he cared.” Cisco tried to stop the tears leaking down his face, but they refused to be stopped. “Hey, I went through it too. I do get it.”

Cisco broke down then. Harry reached across and pulled Cisco into a hug, ignoring the slight flinch, just holding the younger man. “What do I do?” Cisco asked.

“You don’t think about him. You don’t think about whether he was evil or good. You remind yourself of all you have here, and everything you have worth living for here. You ignore him, and you focus on what you have survived. Because you have survived so much. You survived what no man in centuries has survived. And that’s not easy.”

Cisco pulled back. “You knew about that?”

Harry nodded. “I was a slave for two years there. I saw enough human sacrifices to make me immune to most crime scenes.”

Cisco bit out half a laugh at that. He nodded, returning to his seat. “Harry, I…” Harry just waited for him to continue. “I tried to escape. The first month, or maybe the second. I was drugged for the actual first month, so I don’t remember. But, I tried to run away. I made it to the jungle, but then…” Cisco thought back to that day. The pain, the fear, the despair. “there were these hunters. They…they hit me. Started kicking me. Thawne always had me in these individual cuffs so I couldn’t use my powers, and I used to be mad. But then…in the attack, one of them broke. I used my powers to try and push them back-and it worked, don’t get me wrong- but…I broke my arm when it happened. It was as if…as if my arm imploded from the sheer force of my powers. I ran, and then Thawne found me and grabbed me.” He still remembered the lancing pain, the fire in his bones. The moment of terror before he realized that the person who had him wasn’t going to hurt him.

“He…he carried me back to the compound. I was delirious, hallucinating. But he gave me water. He gave me pain killers, put a cast on my arm, and kept me distracted from the pain. He _protected_ me. That’s when he learned my name. After that he was never violent. And right before the ceremony…” the words echoed in his head each night, reminding him of everything he had lost over the years. “He said I was like a son to him. After they dragged me out of the water, Thawne was the one who saved my life. And he _let me go._ After the ceremony, he called me a son, and said I was free, before Barry ever showed up. I just don’t know how to hate him.”

Harry had stayed silent through all of this. He took a deep breath. “It’s a lot, Ramon. I know, it’s hard, but you can move forward. Remember. He couldn’t give you your freedom. It wasn’t his to give as it wasn’t his to take. You are free. That’s who you are. No one can take that from you. It took me a long time to figure that out.”

Cisco nodded. “Harry…do you think I have Stockholm Syndrome?”

Harry thought about it for a moment. “Honestly? Yes. You were a prisoner for 3 months. You had barely any outside contact, and from what I’ve heard it was all negative. You’re clinging to the few positive things from that time you can find. Just don’t shut us out, alright? We’re here when you need us.”

Harry stood up, and gently patted Cisco on the shoulder. “I’m going to go get some Big Belly Burger. Want to join me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww!!! He's back! He's happy! Everyone's all good!!!   
> I'm a sucker for a happy ending. I have to let my characters have some happiness. :)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really small, sorry. It's mostly a tease of a second part of this story, if you want me to continue.

He talked about it. It took him a while, but eventually he was able to get the words out of his head. The thoughts and fears, the memories, the moments he’d tried to ignore. He still couldn’t tell the whole team, but he told Harry. And he told Len. And for then, that would have to do.

He’d begun to host monthly movie nights. Sometimes everyone would show up, sometimes it was only Len. But he focused on them, and that was enough.

It was one such movie night when they began again. Len and Harry were debating the Oceans movies, while Jesse payed more attention to them than to the screen as Cisco made more popcorn when the world started to go blue again, fluctuating in and out of focus.

He shook his head, trying to solidify the vibes when he saw himself. The same version of himself that had lost his arm.

He looked…. Different. He seemed older, and a little bit calmer. He even smiled when he saw…

When he saw Cisco. “I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced, Vibe. I wish I could make introductions, but we've got a situation to handle. With Atlantis.”

Cisco stared at himself through the vibe. “...what the f-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments!!! This has been quite the journey, and I can't wait to continue some of my other works!


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